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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


HQ  734  .  C84  1879 

Cook,  Joseph,  1838-1901. 

Marriage 

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V 


Boston  Monday  Lectures. 


BY  JOSEPH  COOK. 


BIOLOGY.  With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.  Three  Colored  Illustrations. 

12mo.  Sixteenth  thousand . $1.50 

TRANSCENDENTALISM.  With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.  12mo.  Eleventh 

thousand . 1.50 

ORTHODOXY.  With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.  Sixth  thousand  .  .  1.50 

CONSCIENCE.  With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.  Fourth  thousand  .  .  1.50 

HEREDITY.  With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.  (Just  ready.)  .  .  .  1.50 

MARRIAGE.  With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.  (Just  ready.)  .  .  .  1.50 


“I  do  not  know  of  any  work  on  Conscience  in  which  the  true  theory  of  ethics  is*o 
clearly  and  forcibly  presented,  together  with  the  logical  inferences  from  it  in  support  of  the 
great  truths  of  religion.  The  review  of  the  whimsical  and  shallow  speculations  of  Matthew 
Arnold  is  especially  able  and  6atisiactory.”  —  Professor  Francis  Bowen,  Harvard  Univer¬ 
sity. 

‘•These  Lectures  arc  crowded  so  full  of  knowledge,  of  thought,  of  argument,  illumined 
with  such  passages  of  eloquence  and  power,  spiced  so  frequently  with  deep-cutting  though 
good-natured  irony,  that  I  could  make  no  abstract  from  them  without  utterly  mutilating 
them.”  —  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Hill,  ex- President  of  Harvard  University,  in  Christian  Register. 

“Joseph  Cook  is  a  phenomenon  to  be  accounted  for.  No  other  American  orator  has 
done  what  he  has  done,  or  any  tiling  like  it;  and,  prior  to  the  experiment,  no  voice  would 
have  been  bold  enough  to  predict  its  success.”  — Rev.  Professor  A.P.  Peabody  of  Harvard 
University. 

“  Mr.  Cook  is  a  specialist.  His  work,  as  it  now  stands,  represents  fairly  the  very  latest 
and  best  researches.” —  George  31.  Beard,  31. D.,  of  Few  York. 

“By  far  the  most  satisfactory  of  recent  discussions  in  this  field,  both  in  method  and 
execution.” — Professor  Borden  P.  Bourne  of  Boston  University. 

“  Mr.  Cook  is  a  great  master  of  analysis.  lie  shows  singular  justness  of  view  in  his 
manner  of  treating  the  most  difficult  and  perplexing  themes.’’  —  Princeton  Review. 

“The  Lectures  are  remarkably  eloquent,  vigorous,  and  powerful.”  —  R.  Payne  Smith , 
Dean  of  Canterbury. 

“They  are  wonderful  specimens  of  shrewd,  clear,  and  vigorous  thinking.”  —  Rev.  Dr. 
Angus,  the  College,  Regent's  Park. 

“These  are  very  wonderful  Lectures.”  —  Rev.  C.  IT.  Spurgeon. 

“Traversing  a  very  wide  field,  cutting  right  across  the  territories  of  rival  specialists,  the 
work  on  Biology  contains  not  one  important  scientific  misstatement,  either  of  fact  or 
theory.”  —  Bibliotheca  Sacra. 

“  Vigorous  and  suggestive.  Interesting  from  the  glimpses  they  give  of  the  present  phases 
of  speculation  in  what  is  emphatically  the  most  thoughtful  community  in  the  United 
States.”  —  London  Spectator. 

“  I  admired  the  rhetorical  power  witli  which,  before  a  large  mixed  audience,  the  speaker 
knew  how  to  handle  the  difficult  topic  of  biology,  and  to  cause  the  teaching  of  German 
philosophers  and  theologians  to  be  respected.”  —  Professor  Schoberlein,  of  Gottingen  Uni¬ 
versity. 

“  II  is  object  is  the  foundation  of  a  new  and  true  metaphysics  resting  on  a  biological  basis, 
that  is  the  proof  of  the  truth  of  philosophical  theism,  and  of  the  fundamental  ideas  of 
Christianity.  These  intentions  he  carries  out  with  a  full,  and  occasionally  witli  a  too  full, 
application  of  his  eminent  oratorical  talent,  and  with  great  sagacity  and  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  leading  works  in  physiology  for  the  last  thirty  years.”  —  Professor  Ulrici, 
University  of  Halle,  Germany. 


HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD  &  CO.,  Publishers. 


Boston  Monday  Lectures. 


MARRIAGE, 


WITH  PRELUDES  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 


By  JOSEPH  COOK. 


Mer  Slnfang  ift  fdjtoer,  ant  fdjtoerjien  ber  tttnfang  ber  SBirtfjfdjaft. 

______  - —  •'  '  '"“Goethe. 


BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD  AND  COMPANY. 

QLl )t  Etoemfce  Jprefitf,  Camfcrtfise. 

1879. 


Copyright,  1879, 

By  JOSEPH  COOK. 
All  rights  reserved . 


Stereotyped  and  Printed 
By  Ra?id,  Avery,  Company, 
Z17  Franklin  Street, 
Boston. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  object  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures  is  to  present  the 
results  of  the  freshest  German,  English,  and  American  scholar¬ 
ship,  on  the  more  important  and  difficult  topics  concerning  the 
relation  of  Religion  and  Science. 

They  were  begun  in  the  Meionaon  in  1875 ;  and  the  audiences, 
gathered  at  noon  on  Mondays,  were  of  such  size  as  to  need  to  be 
transferred  to  Park-street  Church  in  October,  1876,  and  thence  to 
Tremont  Temple,  which  was  often  more  than  full  during  the  win¬ 
ter  of  1876-77,  and  in  that  of  1S77-78. 

The  audiences  contained  large  numbers  of  ministers,  teachers, 
and  other  educated  men. 

The  thirty-five  lectures  given  in  1876-77  were  reported  in  the 
Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  by  Mr.  J.  E.  Bacon,  stenographer ;  and 
most  of  them  were  republished  in  full  in  New  York  and  Lon¬ 
don.  They  are  contained  in  the  first,  second,  and  third  volumes 
of  “Boston  Monday  Lectures,”  entitled  “Biology,”  “Transcen¬ 
dentalism,”  and  “Orthodoxy.” 

The  lectures  on  Biology  oppose  the  materialistic,  and  not  the 
theistic,  theory  of  evolution. 

The  lectures  on  Transcendentalism  and  Orthodoxy  contain  a 
discussion  of  the  views  of  Theodore  Parker. 

The  thirty  lectures  given  in  1877-78  were  reported  by  Mr.  Bacon, 
for  the  Advertiser,  and  republished  in  full  in  New  York  and  Lon¬ 
don.  They  are  contained  in  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  volumes 
of  “Boston  Monday  Lectures,”  entitled  “Conscience,”  “Hered¬ 
ity,”  and  “Marriage.” 

In  the  present  volume  some  of  the  salient  points  are :  — 

1.  The  employment  of  natural  law  only  as  the  basis  of  the  justi¬ 
fication  of  sound  views  as  to  marriage. 


v 


VI 


INTRODUCTION. 


2.  The  empanelling  of  a  jury  consisting  chiefly  of  pagan  arbi¬ 
trators,  to  decide  what  the  teaching  of  natural  law  is  as  to  mar¬ 
riage  (Lectures  I.  and  II.). 

3.  The  presentation  of  scientific  and  unscientific  contrasted 
propositions  to  this  unprejudiced  jury  or  symposium,  supposed  to 
be  assembled  in  Pliny’s  villa  in  Italy. 

4.  The  swift  refusal  of  the  symposium  to  admit  to  its  hospital¬ 
ity  the  supporters  of  the  infidel  attack  on  the  family. 

5.  The  discussion  before  the  jury  of  lax  divorce-laws  (Lecture 
IV.). 

6.  An  examination  of  the  obstacles  to  marriage  (Lecture  V.). 

7.  A  discussion  of  elective  affinities  from  Goethe’s  point  of 
view  (Lecture  VII.). 

8.  A  study  of  woman’s  nature  as  exhibited  in  literature,  espe¬ 
cially  in  Shakspeare,  Goethe,  Mrs.  Browning,  Tennyson,  and 
Plato  (Lecture  VIII.). 

9.  An  examination  of  the  laws  of  morbid  alterations  in  the 
blood  (Lectures  IX.  and  X.). 

10.  A  study  of  the  pre-natal  influences  which  connect  the  topic 
of  Marriage  with  that  of  Heredity  (Lectures  IX.  and  X.). 

The  committee  having  charge  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures 
for  the  coming  year  consists  of  the  following  gentlemen :  — 


Hon.  A.  H.  Rice,  Ex-Governor  of  Mas¬ 
sachusetts. 

Hon.  William  Claflin,  Ex-Governor 
of  Massachusetts. 

Prof.  E.  P.  Gould,  Newton  Theologi¬ 
cal  Institution. 

Rev.  William  M.  Baker,  D.D. 

Rev.  William  F.  Warren,  D.D.,  Bos¬ 
ton  University. 

Prof.  L.  T.  Townsend,  Boston  Univer¬ 
sity. 

E.  M.  McPherson. 

Robert  Gilchrist. 

Prof.  George  Z.  Gray,  D.D.,  Episco¬ 
pal  Theological  School,  Cambridge. 


Prof.  Edwards  A.  Park,  D.D.,  An- 
dover  Theological  Seminary. 

Right  Rev.  Bishop  Paddock. 

Prof.  E.  N.  Horsford. 

Hon.  Alpheus  Hardy. 

Rev.  J.  L.  Withrow,  D.D. 

A.  Bronson  Alcott. 

Russell  Sturgis,  Jr. 

Right  Rev.  Bishop  Foster. 

Reuben  Crooke. 

Samuel  Johnson. 

William  B.  Merrill. 

Prof.  B.  P.  Bowne. 

M.  R.  Deming,  Secretary. 

B.  W.  Williams,  Financial  Agent. 

HENRY  F.  DURANT,  Chairman. 


I 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURES. 

PAGE 

I.  Infidel  Attack  on  the  Family . 13 

II.  A  Supreme  Affection  between  Two  ....  39 

III.  The  Leper’s  Theory  and  Practice . 71 

*  IY.  Marriage  without  Love . 101 

Y.  Obstacles  to  Marriage . 129 

YI.  Love  without  Marriage . 155 

YII.  Elective  Affinities;  or,  Who  should  Marry 

Whom? . 180 

YIII.  Goethe  and  Shakspeare  on  Marriage  .  .  .  205 

IX.  Inherited  Educational  Forces . 232 

X.  Hereditary  Taints  in  Blood . 257 

PRELUDES 

PAGE 

I.  The  Reformation  of  Romanism .  3  / 

II.  American  Bondage  to  the  Uneducated  ...  29 

III.  Ruskin’s  Character  and  Writings . 63 

IY.  Falstaff  and  Lord  Yerisopht  as  Theologians,  89 

Y.  Why  am  I  not  a  Universalist? . 115 

YI.  Cause  and  Effect  in  the  Soul’s  Future  .  .  143 

YII.  Equal  Educational  Rights  for  Black  and 

White . - . 169 

YIII.  Literary  Conferences  at  World’s  Exhibitions,  199 
IX.  Yirchow’s  Reply  to  Hackel’s  Materialism  .  225 
X.  What  lies  behind  the  Key-Board  of  the 

Nerves? . 251 

ix 


PUBLISHERS’  NOTE. 


In  the  careful  reports  of  Mr.  Cook’s  Lectures  printed 
in  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  were  included  by  the 
stenographer  sundry  expressions  (applause,  &c.)  indicat¬ 
ing  the  immediate  and  varjfing  impressions  with  which  the 
Lectures  were  received.  Though  these  reports  have  been 
thoroughly  revised  by  the  author,  the  publishers  have 
thought  it  advisable  to  retain  these  expressions.  Mr. 
Cook’s  audiences  included,  in  large  numbers,  representa¬ 
tives  of  the  broadest  scholarship,  the  profoundest  philoso¬ 
phy,  the  acutest  scientific  research,  and  generally  of  the 
finest  intellectual  culture,  of  Boston  and  New  England ; 
and  it  has  seemed  admissible  to  allow  the  larger  assembly 
to  which  these  Lectures  are  now  addressed  to  know  how 
they  were  received  by  such  audiences  as  those  to  which 
they  were  originally  delivered. 


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I. 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIRST  LECTURE  IN  THE  BOSTON 
MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  FEB.  18. 

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To  a  man  who  is  in  love,  the  thought  of  another  woman  is 
uninteresting,  if  not  repulsive.  Instead  of  love  being  the  occasion 
of  all  the  misery  of  this  world,  as  is  sung  by  fantastic  hards,  I 
believe  that  the  misery  of  this  world  is  occasioned  by  there  not 
being  love  enough. — Lord  Beaconsfield:  Contarini  Fleming ,  iii.  17. 


’ATieTTTVG’  avrrjVy  rjng  uvdpa  jov  nupog 
Kaivolat  Tie ktpolq  ano[3a?.ovo’  aKKov  &i\d. 

Euripides:  Troad,  660. 


MARRIAGE. 


- o - - 

I. 

INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

If  the  Pope  is  infallible,  he  is  irreformable  except 
by  death  and  a  successor.  Although  it  is  difficult  to 
bend  any  one  link  in  the  papal  chain,  its  succession 
of  links  may  easily  change  its  direction.  In  spite  of 
the  infallibility  of  the  Papacy,  the  fallible  elections 
in  which  the  Popes  are  chosen  are  a  succession  of 
links;  and  every  election  of  an  incumbent  of  the 
great  chair  at  St.  Peter’s  is  an  opportunity  for 
changing  the  direction  of  the  chain.  History  exhibits 
curious  alterations  in  the  policy  of  the  Papacy,  and 
proves  that  its  mediaeval  armor  is  far  from  being 
wholly  impervious  to  the  heavier  weapons  of  military 
and  political  necessity,  however  true  it  may  be  that 
the  clouds  of  the  lighter  arrows  of  modern  discussion 
drop  off  its  breastplate  like  so  much  futile  rain.  Let 
us  thank  God  that  no  Julius  II.,  and  no  Leo  X.,  who 


4 


MARRIAGE. 


thought  more  of  art  than  of  the  44  fables  concerning 
Christ,”  could  now  be  elected  to  the  chair  in  the 
Vatican.  This  result  has  been  effected  by  the  pres¬ 
sure  of  scholarly  discussion  upon  Romanism.  The 
continuance  of  that  pressure  will  not  be  without  vic¬ 
torious  effects  in  time  to  come.  We  cannot  exter¬ 
minate  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  nor  very  easily 
change  its  name.  For  one,  I  think  that  it  may  be 
in  existence  twenty  centuries  hence,  or  when  Mac¬ 
aulay’s  New  Zealander,  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  sol¬ 
itude,  shall  take  his  position  on  the  remnant  of  some 
arch  of  the  London  Bridge,  to  sketch  the  ruins 
of  St.  Paul’s.  If  Romanism  is  not  likely  to  change 
its  name,  can  it  not  change  its  nature  ?  The 
proverb  says  that  Catholicity  is  the  strength  of 
Romanism,  but  that  Romanism  is  the  weakness  of 
Catholicity.  What  if  Protestantism  should  set  her¬ 
self  vehemently  to  the  task  of  fostering  Catholicity 
inside  of  Romanism,  by  taking  the  position  of  the  old 
Catholics,  and  opposing,  as  vigorously  as  in  Luther’s 
day,  not  Romanists,  but  Romanism?  Will  not  that 
be  the  strategic  line  of  effort  for  changing  an  in¬ 
fallible  Pope? 

The  system  of  ecclesiastical  order  perfected  by  the 
management  of  Italians  is  by  some  regarded  as  a 
greater  triumph  of  the  genius  of  the  people  of  the 
peninsula  south  of  the  Alps  than  was  the  Roman 
Empire.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  two  hundred 
millions,  or  very  nearly  that  number,  profess  the 
Romish  faith.  Certain  it  is  that  church  machinery 
has  never  had  in  history  such  colossal  power  as  that 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


5 


which  is  represented  by  the  122  vicars,  the  693  bish¬ 
ops,  the  183  archbishops,  all  obedient  in  every  part 
of  the  world  to  the  slightest  beckoning  of  the  Pope’s 
finger  on  the  Tiber.  The  temporal  power  is  not 
likely  to  be  insisted  on  with  such  untimely  empha¬ 
sis  in  the  future  as  it  has  been  in  the  past.  Political 
interference  with  strong  nations  is  likely  to  become 
unfashionable,  even  with  Vatican  Romanism. 

Pius  IX.  was  himself  a  reformer  in  his  youth.  It 
is  supposed  that  he  never  quite  gave  up  his  zeal  for 
Italian  unity.  Of  course  so  many  men  who  were 
not  religious  defended  the  political  enterprise  which 
Garibaldi  led,  and  which  finally  the  brave  Victor 
Emmanuel  carried  to  success,  that  a  Pope  pledged 
to  conservatism  could  not  very  well  appear  at  its 
front.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Pius  IX.,  soon  after 
his  succession  to  the  papal  chair,  was  thrown  into 
the  background,  instead  of  being  placed  in  the  fore¬ 
ground  of  political  reforms.  But  it  is  said,  in  spite 
of  the  fulminations  he  now  and  then  officially  issued 
against  Victor  Emmanuel,  that  he  retained  always 
his  friendship  for  that  king.  Certain  it  is  that  Italy 
had  in  it  combustible  material  both  for  moral  and 
political  reforms  ;  but  Romanism  did  not  kindle  it. 

What  is  Protestantism  not  doing  that  it  could 
do  for  the  Romish  nations  of  the  globe?  What  is 
their  condition  ?  Glance  from  St.  Peter’s  around  the 
planet,  and  compare  Catholic  countries  with  Protes¬ 
tant.  Let  us  not  forget  King  Bomba.  Let  us  not  for¬ 
get  how  Italy  has  been  sliced  and  peeled  and  seared. 
But,  every  thing  considered,  has  Italy  suffered  more 


6 


MARRIAGE. 


since  Luther’s  time  than  Germany  did  under  the 
Thirty  Years’  War?  Have  cannon-wheels  and  sabres 
injured  her  more  since  the  period  of  the  Reformation 
than  they  have  injured  Germany  ?  Has  she  been 
the  battlefield  of  all  the  European  wars,  as  Germany 
has  been?  Where  are  the  demoralizing  influences 
in  Italy  to  account  for  her  inferiority  to  Prussia 
to-day  as  a  moral,  intellectual,  and  political  force 
on  the  globe  ?  Put  into  contrast  Italy  and  Prussia. 
North  Germany,  as  compared  with  Italy,  has  many 
physical  disadvantages,  —  a  poor  soil,  an  inclement 
climate.  We  know  what  the  German  universities  are, 
as  compared  with  the  Italian ;  what  German  literature 
is,  as  compared  with  the  Italian  in  the  last  hundred 
years.  I  was  assured  in  Rome  by  a  most  scholarly 
and  painstaking  Italian  statistician,  that  when  the 
Papal  states,  in  which  the  Pope  had  his  own  way, 
fell  into  the  hands  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  a  less 
proportion  of  the  adult  inhabitants  could  read  and 
write  than  in  the  darkest  provinces  of  Spain. 

Contrast  Spain  with  England,  or  Portugal  with 
Scotland.  Edmund  Burke  called  Spain  a  stranded 
whale  on  the  coast  of  Europe.  Why  has  it  not  had 
recuperative  force  enough  to  flounder  back  into  the 
sea  ?  How  is  it  that  Protestant  nations  not  greatly 
favored  by  climate  or  position  strike  into  the  van¬ 
guard  of  progress,  while  the  most  favored,  semi- 
tropical  Catholic  countries  drop  behind,  fall  into 
ignorance,  pauperism,  general  decay,  and  exhibit  so 
little  recuperative  force  ?  Compare  the  Catholic 
and  Protestant  cantons  of  Switzerland.  Dickens 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


7 


says  you  would  perceive  the  difference  in  their 
condition,  even  if  you  walked  across  the  borders 
between  them  in  the  night. 

Do  you  say  that  climate  is  against  the  semi-tropical 
territories  of  the  Latin  races?  Very  well:  cross  the 
ocean,  and  study  Canada.  It  has  two  ends,  an  east¬ 
ern  and  a  western,  and  the  climate  does  not  differ 
vastly  in  the  two  sections ;  but  the  state  of  society 
does  !  It  has  been  my  fortune  to  be  mobbed  on  the 
St.  Lawrence  for  temperately  asserting  in  defence 
of  a  Protestant  colportor,  who  was  my  companion, 
that  I  did  not  believe  that  a  priest  could  raise  the 
dead.  I  have  travelled,  I  suppose,  a  hundred  miles 
on  foot  along  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and 
not  been  able  to  find  a  single  cottage  of  an  habitant 
—  this  was  twenty  years  ago  —  in  which  I  could  have 
obtained  an  amanuensis  to  write  a  letter  to  my 
friends,  if  I  had  been  too  sick  to  write  one  myself,  or 
have  found  a  Bible  in  the  vernacular  tongue.  One 
is  surprised  in  Canada  to  this  moment,  in  the  eastern 
and  Romish  portion  of  the  Dominion,  to  find  the 
rural  population  very  largely  in  a  state  of  prolonged 
childhood,  just  such  as  characterizes  the  agricultural 
populations  of  Italy  and  South  Germany  and  Austria. 
In  Western  Canada  we  have  the  brain  of  the  Domin¬ 
ion,  and  a  heart  and  enterprise  that  are  reaching  out 
their  arms  to  clasp  Manitoba  and  the  fat  valley  of  the 
Saskatchewan  and  the  Pacific.  Western  Canada  is  a 
Protestant  region ;  and  its  recuperative  force,  its  pro¬ 
gressive  valor,  contrast  sharply  with  the  lassitude 
of  Eastern  Canada,  and  result  very  largely  from  its 


8 


MARRIAGE. 


different  church  life.  I  know  how  beautiful  the 
shores  of  a  portion  of  the  eastern  provinces  have 
been  made  by  the  marvellous  local  sorcery  cast 
upon  them  in  a  famous  New-England  poem.  An 
Evangeline,  indeed,  may  be  born  in  a  Catholic 
province ;  but,  if  you  come  closely  into  contact 
with  the  social  life  of  the  villages  of  the  type 
of  Grand  Pr6,  you  will  find  that,  little  by  little, 
they  lose  their  hold  upon  your  fancy.  Little  by 
little,  as  stories,  probably  not  well  authenticated  in 
nine  cases  out  of  ten,  but  with  something  behind 
them  in  one  case  out  of  ten,  remind  you  of  charges 
which  caused  a  convent  to  be  burned  once  yonder 
in  sight  of  Bunker  Hill,  you  begin  to  doubt  whether 
it. is  best,  after  all,  to  bring  up  young  men  and 
maidens  in  an  undisturbed  Romish  style. 

The  truth  is,  that  to-day,  in  Eastern  Canada,  the 
progress  of  the  newspaper  press  in  popular  influence, 
and  the  advance  of  education,  are  preparing  a  large 
revolt  against  priestly  power.  There  is  hardly  a  more 
promising  field  on  this  continent  for  Protestant  effort 
than  Lower  Canada  in  its  present  gradual  emergence 
from  a  state  of  subserviency  to  Romanism,  and  in  its 
contagious  quickening  by  the  Protestant  spirit  of 
education  and  self-rule.  We  have  many  faults  which 
I  hope  the  Canadian  Romanist  will  not  copy.  The 
Catholic  peasant  of  Eastern  Canada  is  reverent ;  he 
is  docile  under  religious  instruction ;  he  is  cheerful 
under  hard  tasks ;  he  is  not  without  vague  religious 
aspirations,  which  seem  to  h^ve  come  down  to  him 
by  hereditary  descent.  But  he  is  at  the  same  time 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


9 


choked  by  ignorance  and,  in  many  cases,  by  subser¬ 
viency  to  superstition.  It  was  my  fortune  once  to 
ride  from  Pointe-aux-Trembles  to  Montreal,  when 
a  driver  said  to  me,  “  Do  you  notice  how  the  fields 
are  left  desolate  on  account  of  the  grasshopper 
scourge?” — “Yes,  sir.”  —  Do  you  know  that  last 
summer  we  implored  the  aid  of  our  priests  to  rid  us 
of  this  plague  ?  ”  —  “  No,  sir.”  —  “  Well,  you  should 
know  what  these  small  buildings  placed  at  intervals 
at  the  side  of  the  way  were  made  for.  The  priests 
offered  prayer  in  them  when  the  grasshopper  plague 
was  here  last  summer.  They  came  into  these  struc¬ 
tures  by  the  roadside,  and  burned  incense,  and  of¬ 
fered  prayers.”  The  man  was  perfectly  in  earnest, 
and  thoroughly  honest.  “  And,  sir,  the  grasshoppers 
began  to  leap  over  each  other  in  billows.  They  had 
eaten  up  the  very  fences  previous  to  the  swinging  of 
the  censers;  but  they  jumped  over  and  over  and  over 
each  other  and  away  from  the  censers,  until  there  was 
not  a  grasshopper  left  on  our  fields.”  —  “  Why  have 
you  not  swung  the  censers  this  season?”  —  “It  is  for 
our  sins.  The  priests  will  not  interfere.”  I  was  then 
within  sixty  miles  of  the  United  States. 

Who  does  not  see  that,  in  the  present  posture  of 
the  Latin  and  the  Saxon  races,  so  far  as  they  are 
touched  by  Romanism,  we  have  a  loud  call  for  the 
inspiriting  of  all  Protestant  endeavor  in  the  Latin 
nations?  Where  are  the  men  to  go  to  Mexico  to 
occupy  to  the  full  the  opportunity  opening  there? 
In  Colorado  there  is  now  in  process  of  construction 
a  college  which  hopes  to  stand  as  a  lighthouse  for  the 


10 


MARRIAGE. 


range  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  great  valley 
between  the  Sierras  and  Colorado.  Conversing 
lately  with  its  president  and  with  a  bishop  from 
Mexico,  I  found  a  concert  of  action  between  Protes¬ 
tants  in  that  southern  nation  and  in  the  western  por¬ 
tion  of  our  own,  for  spreading  abroad  the  light 
through  the  desolate  valley  of  the  Colorado,  and 
southward  into  the  sandy  stretches  of  Northern  Mex¬ 
ico,  and  then  upward  to  those  highlands  of  Central 
Mexico,  which  are  ultimately  to  contain  a  great 
population.  A  railway  is  being  built  southward  from 
Denver,  and  will  reach,  before  many  years,  the  city 
of  the  Montezumas.  It  will  awaken  the  Spanish 
villages  on  its  route.  How  sublime  is  the  duty  of 
lighting  college  beacons  to  blaze  afar  from  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  the  Mexican  heights !  “We  have,” 
says  President  Tenney,  “  mediaeval  Spanish  Catholi¬ 
cism  voting  in  Colorado.  If  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
descends  with  tongues  of  fire  on  a  Christian  college 
in  the  New  West,  it  is  likely  that  one  of  the  tongues 
will  be  Spanish.”  (Tenney,  E.  P.,  President  of  Colo¬ 
rado  College,  The  Neiv  West ,  pp.  39, 40.  'Boston,  1878.) 
Where  are  the  men  who  can  fill  up  the  openings  in 
Lower  Canada  ?  Where  are  the  men  to  teach  a 
pure  gospel  in  Portugal  and  in  Spain  ?  Where  are 
the  men  that  can  carry  the  light  of  Protestantism 
to  the  very  edges  of  the  windows  of  the  Vatican, 
open  the  Scriptures  under  the  dome  of  St.  Peter’s, 
and  show  Rome  what  she  never  has  seen,  a  Protes- 
tanfc  church  of  great  power  doing  its  duty  thoroughly  ? 
[Applause.] 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


11. 


Go  to  the  secretaries  who  are  watching  the  Latin 
races  in  their  relations  to  Romanism.  Ascertain  the 
sehret  whisper  of  experts  on  this  theme.  It  is  that 
Romanism  at’  this  moment  is  discouraged  on  account 
of  the  number  of  defections  from  Romanism  in  the 
Latin  races. .  In  Spain,  in  Portugal,  in  Italy,  in  Mex¬ 
ico,  there  are  great  stretches  of  popular,  to  say  noth¬ 
ing  of  educated,  defection.  The  word  of  the  hour 
with  the  Jesuit  party  is,  “Let  us  occupy  the  Saxon 
zone.  Let  us  remember  what  support  we  have  had 
from  perverts  in  the  last  fifty  years.  A  Newman,  a 
Bronson,  a  Cardinal  Manning,  a  Tractarian  party  in 
Oxford  and  elsewhere,  have  been  our  most  effective 
apologists.  Let  us  remember  that  the  future  church 
of  the  globe  is  in  the  hands  of  Saxon  nations.  As 
we  are  failing  to  hold  our  own  zone  of  the  Latin 
centres,  let  us  make  an  attack,  not  only  upon  the 
religious  faith,  but  upon  the  political  quiet,  of  Ger¬ 
many,  of  Scotland,  of  England,  and  of  the  United 
States.  We  Jesuits  have  had  a  bad  name  since  Pas¬ 
cal  wrote  his  Provencal  letters ;  but  we  once  knew 
how  to  manage  courts,  and  shall  we  not  learn  how  to 
manage  political  parties  ?  Once  we  led  because  we 
were  better  teachers  than  other  men :  shall  we  not 
lead  now  because  we  are  better  politicians?  Who 
does  not  know  that  the  world  is  more  and  more 
governed  by  popular  suffrage  ?  Who  does  not  know 
that  two  hundred  million  people  are  behind  us,  and 
have  hitherto  followed  our  political  as  well  as  reli¬ 
gious  bidding  ?  Who  does  not  know,  that,  if  a  politi¬ 
cian  sees  in  our  hands  the  power  to  mass  the  Romish 


12 


MARRIAGE. 


vote,  lie  is  ours,  unless  lie  is  more  honest  than  most 
politicians  are?”  [Applause.]  This  soliloquy  of 
the  Jesuit  power  is  heard  oftener  on  the  Tiber  than 
we  think.  It  seems  to  have  been  overheard  by  Bis¬ 
marck  and  Gladstone,  but  not  by  America.  It  is 
the  explanation  of  the  Pope’s  remark  that  America 
is  the  hope  of  Romanism.  Its  success  is  expected 
here  through  the  political  worth  of  the  Romish  vote 
in  the  quarrels  of  American  parties.  [Applause.] 

There  is  no  way  of  intimidating  politicians  of  the 
unscrupulous  sort,  except  by  massing  votes;  and 
there  is  no  way  to  mass  votes,  except  by  agitation. 
We  must,  therefore,  occasionally,  difficult  as  the 
topic  is,  speak  very  frankly  as  to  the  divided  alle¬ 
giance  of  Romanists.  The  creed  of  Pope  Pius  IV. 
is  put  for  subscription  before  every  priest  and  every 
bishop.  Every  convert  to  Romanism  must  signify 
his  assent  to  it.  One  of  its  sections  reads,  “I  do 
give  allegiance  to  the  bishop  of  Rome;”  and  the 
sense  is,  “I  do  give  political  as  well  as  religious 
allegiance.” 

Let  us  remember,  however,  that  a  great  body  of 
the  Romish  Church  in  republican  countries  is  edu¬ 
cated  by  general  custom  into  distrust  of  priestly 
rule.  Let  us  stand  by  the  Roman  laity  when  they  do 
not  stand  by  their  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  bishop  on 
the  Tiber.  [Applause.]  Let  us  take  Bismarck  and 
Gladstone  for  our  leaders  in  regard  to  all  domestic 
remedies  against  Catholic  usurpation  and  disloyalty. 
[Applause.]  Let  us  have  it  understood  from  the 
first,  that  there  are  some  ecclesiastical  political  ma- 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


13 


noeuvres  which  cannot  be  carried  through  in  America, 
nor  even  begun,  without  a  protest  that  will  amount 
to  an  explosion.  [Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

After  the  Greek  reformer  Phocion,  who  resembles 
our  Washington,  had  drunk  the  hemlock,  the  politi¬ 
cal  party  which  had  put  him  to  death  refused  him 
burial  in  Attic  soil.  No  Athenian  was  permitted  to 
kindle  the  funeral  pyre  on  which  he  was  to  be  laid ; 
none  who  belonged  to  Attica  dared  assist  at  his 
funeral.  The  ages  remember  Phocion.  They  ought 
not  to  forget  his  wife.  Eleusis  lies  not  a  dozen  miles 
to  the  west  from  Athens,  and  many  of  you  have 
seen  the  white  sacred  road  which  leads  through  the 
pass  of  Daphne  from  the  Acropolis  to  that  city.  In 
the  concealment  of  evening  the  wife  of  Phocion,  with 
her  handmaids,  and  with  a  man  whose  name  Plu¬ 
tarch  has  preserved  for  us  as  Canopion,  went  through 
the  groves  in  which  Plato  had  taught  his  scholars ; 
ascended  the  pass  of  Daphne  in  the  midnight,  came 
down  on  the  other  side,  found  the  border-line  be¬ 
tween  Attica  and  Megara,  took  Phocion’s  remains 
over  the  border,  obtained  fire  from  beyond  the  fron¬ 
tier  of  Megara  to  light  the  funeral  pile ;  and,  when 
the  obsequies  were  completed,  erected  there  an  empty 
tomb,  and  performed  the  customary  libations.  Then 
the  wife  gathered  up  the  bones  of  Phocion  in  her 
lap,  carried  them  back  by  night  to  her  own  house  in 
Athens,  and  buried  them,  says  Plutarch,  under  the 
hearthstone,  and  uttered  over  them  this  prayer: 


14 


MAEEIAGE. 


“Blessed  hearth,  to  your  custody  I  commit  the  re¬ 
mains  of  a  good  and  brave  man ;  and,  I  beseech  you, 
protect  and  restore  them  to  the  sepulchre  of  his 
fathers  when  the  Athenians  return  to  their  right 
minds.”  (Plutaech’s  Lives ,  Phocion,  at  the  end. 
Dryden’s  translation,  ed.  by  Clough.)  That  was 
in  the  year  317,  before  Christ.  The  memory  of 
this  scene  has  been  authentically  preserved  for  us 
more  than  two  thousand  years.  Has  paganism  any 
ideals  as  to  the  family?  Has  human  nature  any 
crystalline  waters  bursting  out  from  those  arid  rocks 
which  lie  beyond  the  range  of  the  falling  showers 
of  Christianity?  Certain  it  is,  that  if  we  go  out 
boldly  upon  the  desolate  pagan  waste,  and  study  the 
waters  that  burst  forth,  not  from  the  swamps  that  lie 
on  the  surface,  not  from  any  oozy  region  where  the 
mere  sediment  of  discussion  settles,  and  where  the 
amphibious  croaking  troops  of  slimy  leprosy  have 
their  home,  but  go  out  until  we  find  the  waters  that 
burst  from  the  lowest,  innermost  depths  of  the  pagan 
native  granite,  the  quality  of  that  sweet  crystalline 
water,  and  of  the  water  that  drops  in  showers  from 
the  Christian  heavens,  will  be  found  to  be  the  same. 
[Applause.] 

Xenophon  tells  us  of  Cyrus,  and  we  remember 
him ;  but  the  centuries  ought  not  to  forget  Panthea, 
who  was  once  a  captive  of  this  king.  She  had  op¬ 
portunity  to  desert  her  husband  for  any  life  she 
pleased  to  choose,  even  were  it  that  of  a  queen  in  the 
court  of  Cyrus.  Xenophon,  an  old  Greek  who  had 
heard  nothing  of  Christianity,  sits  down  to  write  a 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


15 


romance,  stating  what  man  ought  to  be.  He  tells 
the  story  of  this  Panthea  to  illustrate  his  ideal  of 
family  life.  The  woman  was  the  wife  of  Abradatus, 
and  she  had  married  him  with  a  supreme  affection. 
When  she  became  the  captive  of  Cyrus,  the  king 
asked  her  where  her  home  was.  “  On  the  bosom  of 
my  husband,”  was  in  substance  her  answer.  “Do 
you  wish  to  return  home  in  spite  of  the  possibilities 
before  you  here  ?  ”  —  “  Send  me  swiftly.”  When  she 
had  been  restored  by  Cyrus  to  Abradatus,  she  was 
desirous  of  showing  her  gratitude,  and  so  induced  her 
husband  to  enter  the  army  of  Cyrus,  and  defend  that 
king  in  battle.  As  her  husband  was  about  leaving 
her,  she  brought  him  what  she  had  secretly  pre¬ 
pared,  a  set  of  ornaments  for  his  armor.  She  had  a 
helmet  also,  and  breastplate  and  greaves,  and  put 
upon  him  gloves  which  had  been  filled  with  iron, 
links  by  her  own  hands.  She  said,  “If  ever  there 
was  a  woman  that  regarded  her  husband  more  than 
her  own  soul,  I  am  that  woman.”  This  is  Xeno¬ 
phon’s  language  (  Cyropedia ,  book  vi.  chap.  iv.).  Here 
is  a  spring  bursting  out  of  the  depths  of  pagan  soil. 
Notice  its  quality.  If  you  see  its  flashing  here,  and 
are  dazzled  by  it,  look  into  the  original  documents, 
and  you  will  be  dazzled  yet  more.  She  put  upon 
her  husband  the  armor,  and  said,  “  Although  I  care 
more  for  you  than  for  my  soul,  I  certainly  would 
rather  choose  to  be  put  under  ground  jointly  with 
you,  while  you  approve  yourself  a  brave  man,  than 
to  live  dishonored  with  you  in  dishonor ;  so  much  do 
I  think  you  and  myself  worthy  of  the  noblest  things.” 


16 


MARRIAGE. 


Then  the  door  was  shut,  and  she  kissed  the  chariot 
seat;  and,  as  it  moved  away*,  she  followed  after  it 
unperceived  until  Abradatus,  looking  back,  said, 
“Take  courage,  Panthea.  Farewell;  and  now  re¬ 
turn.”  After  the  battle  the  news  came  of  the  death 
of  Abradatus.  She  had  his  corpse  brought  to  the 
river  Pactolus.  She  caused  it  to  be  prepared  for 
burial ;  she  sat  down  beside  it ;  she  covered  her  face  ; 
she  put  her  face  upon  her  knees.  Cyrus  came, 
Xenophon  says,  and,  looking  upon  the  scene  wept, 
and  then  took  hold  of  the  right  hand  of  Abradatus, 
as  it  lay  there  a  part  of  the  remains,  and  the  hand 
came  off  the  arm.  “Why  need  you  disturb  him?” 
said  the  woman.  “  The  rest  of  the  body  is  in  the 
same  condition.”  And  she  took  the  hand  from  Cyrus, 
and  kissed  it,  and  put  it  back  upon  the  wrist,  and 
covered  the  face  of  her  husband  and  her  own. 
When  Cyrus  began  to  renew  his  offers,  and  assured 
her  that  she  should  not  want  honor,  and  asked  where 
she  wished  to  be  conveyed,  she  said,  “  Be  assured,  sir, 
that  I  will  not  conceal  from  jrou  to  whom  it  is  that  I 
desire  to  go.”  (Cyropedia,  book  vii.  chap,  iii.)  She 
begged  then  to  be  left  alone,  even  by  her  servants. 
One  maid  remained  with  her.  I  cannot  justify  Pan¬ 
thea  in  every  thing.  She  had  been  brought  up  to 
the  stern  opinions  which  sanctioned  suicide.  What 
she  did  was  to  tell  her  maid  to  cover  her  in  the  same 
mantle  with  her  husband;  then  she  smote  herself, 
put  her  head  upon  his  breast,  and  fell  asleep. 

Great  Nature  is  in  that!  You  wish  me  to  teach 
what  science  proclaims  concerning  family  life !  I 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


17 


must  ask  you  to  go  back  to  the  deepest  springs  of 
human  experience.  These  women,  Phocion’s  wife 
and  the  wife  of  Abradatus,  are  sisters  to  us  all,  and 
helpers  to  every  age.  They  are  crystalline  water 
bursting  up  from  the  innermost  rifts  of  human  nature 
and  society,  and  one  in  its  purity  with  that  rain 
which  falls  on  all  the  hills,  and  is  the  real  source, 
after  all,  of  every  one  of  these  crystalline  springs. 
[Applause.] 

Well,  but  you  say,  Lord  Byron  has  taught  us  that 
somewhere  a  Christian  maiden  nursed  her  father  in 
prison,  and  that  no  such  family  virtues  were  to  be 
found  in  heathendom.  Will  you  go  with  me  to  that 
museum  at  Naples  where  Pompeiian  relics  that  can¬ 
not  be  seen  by  both  sexes  together  are  exhibited  in 
one  quarter  of  the  collection  ?  Go  with  me  to  Pom¬ 
peii,  which  seems  to  have  been  justly  cursed  of  God; 
and  in  the  ashes  there  I  will  show  you  the  place 
where  men  found  what  now  is  on  the  wall  of  the 
museum  at  Naples  for  the  eyes  of  every  nation  to 
look  upon,  —  a  picture  of  a  gray-haired  man  in  a 
prison  with  a  light  streaming  through  the  barred 
windows.  When  was  this  picture  made?  Before 
Pompeii  was  destroyed.  Where  was  this  picture 
reverenced  ?  In  that  soft  Italian  watering-place, 
one  of  the  worst  spots,  even  in  Italy,  in  that  age. 
In  the  ruins  uncovered  lately  on  the  Palatine  Hill, 
we  find  none  of  the  infamous  Pompeiian  affairs.  The 
watering-places  appear  corrupt  in  that  time  as  they 
do  now.  Even  Rome  has  not  been  able  to  unearth 
any  thing  equally  infamous  with  some  things  found 


18 


MARKIAGE. 


at  Pompeii.  But  out  of  Pompeii,  from  tlie  very  heart 
of  that  festering  portion  of  heathendom,  this  picture 
has  been  taken  of  a  father  in  his  age,  and  in  impris¬ 
onment,  and  obtaining  his  nourishment  from  his 
daughter’s  breast.  You  say  that  story  Byron  has 
told  us.  I  say  that  story  heathendom  has  told  us, 
and  that  thSre  again  we  have  great  Nature,  a  sister 
and  helper  of  us  all;  and  that  on  this  theme  any 
man  who  wishes  to  know  what  is  natural,  what  is 
scientific,  must  take  not  the  amphibian  pools,  but 
these  crystalline  springs,  for  his  answer.  [Applause.] 
Stand  there,  Pompeiian  daughter ;  stand  here,  Pan- 
thea ;  stand  here,  Phocion’s  wife :  and  come  up  hither 
and  confront  them,  Strauss,  Sehoepenhauer,  Voltaire, 
Bousseau,  and  any  leprous  free-lovers  that  undermine 
American  society.  [Applause.]  Come  up  here  !  Come 
up  here  !  for  this  discussion  is  not  in  a  corner.  New 
England  listens  to  what  this  audience  says,  although 
not  to  what  your  poor  lecturer  may  utter.  Come  up 
here,  and  face,  not  the  Bible,  but  this  pagan  libation. 
I  pour  it  out  here  from  goblet  after  goblet.  I  might 
have  made  the  examples  stretch  out  in  a  long  line. 
Do  you  stand  here,  underminers  of  the  family  life, 
and  gaze  into  the  eyes  of  these  women  while  we 
discuss  your  theories  !  In  the  mood  brought  to  you 
by  these  examples,  are  you  ready  to  listen  without 
prejudice  to  these  theories?  We  must  put  aside  all 
prejudice !  Yes,  just  so  soon  as  the  fundamentals  of 
the  nature  of  things  do.  We  must  put  aside  all 
partisanship,  and  discuss  every  thing  in  a  scientific 
manner,  without  anyheat,  without  the  least  rhetoric, 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


19 


without  any  expressiveness  in  style;  we  must  be  cool, 
balanced,  and  give  every  side  a  fair  hearing !  Yes, 
we  will  be  cool  if  the  heart  of  the  nature  of  things  is 
cool  on  family  life  !  We  will  have  no  opinion,  if  the 
very  structure  of  human  nature  has  no  opinion  on 
this  theme  !  As  we  speak  of  home  and  love  and  of 
family  life,  and  its  sanctities  and  sanctions,  we  will 
use  tame  phrases,  and  avoid  every  thing  expressive, 
if  Almighty  God,  in  the  supreme  instincts  of  the  soul, 
tells  us  that  we  must :  otherwise,  not.  [Applause.] 
David  Ilume  has  said  that  “it  is  contrary  to  the 
interest  of  civil  society,  that  men  should  have  entire 
liberty”  in  infamous  matters;  “but,  as  this  interest 
is  weaker  than  in  the  case  of  the  female  sex,  the 
moral  obligation  arising  from  it  must  be  proportion¬ 
ately  weaker.”  (  Treatise  of  Human  Nature ,  book  iii. 
part  ii.  sect,  xii.)  The  first  man  I  wish  to  con¬ 
front  Phocion’s  wife  and  Panthea’s  eyes  is  whoever 
is  foremost  in  opposing  the  principles  these  examples 
illustrate.  Come  forward  here,  whoever  by  theory 
or  practice  has  assisted  in  undermining  family  life. 
You  must  look  into  the  nature  of  things,  and  by  that 
I  mean  the  eyes  of  this  Pompeiian  maiden  and  of  all 
who  resemble  her.  I  mean  the  eyes  of  Phocion’s 
wife  and  of  all  who  resemble  her.  I  affirm  that,  if 
Strauss’s  ideas  of  marriage  and  divorce  had  had  free 
course  in  five  centuries  previous  to  the  appearance 
of  these  characters  on  the  globe,  they  never  would 
have  appeared ;  that  these  springs  would  have  been 
choked ;  and  that  any  refreshment  we  have  for  our 
thirst  as  we  quaff  these  pure  waters  would  have  been 


20 


MARRIAGE. 


denied  to  ns  and  the  centuries.  Panthea  looks  into 
Rousseau’s  eyes,  Phocion’s  wife  looks  into  Strauss’s 
eyes,  this  Pompeiian  maiden  looks  into  Swinburne’s 
eyes,  and  you  look  into  their  eyes,  following  those  of 
these  women  ;  and,  in  the  name  of  science,  all  leprosy 
quails.  Long  experience  gives  it  no  following.  Long 
experience  meets  it  with  a  prolonged  hiss  and  curse  ! 

I  open  Schoepenhauer,  an  angular  erratic  and  mis¬ 
anthrope,  you  say,  and  yet  he  is  temporarily  one  of 
the  most  popular  of  the  non-academic  philosophers 
of  Germany;  and  I  read  that  “marriage  is  the  doub¬ 
ling  of  our  duties  and  the  halving  of  our  rights.”  A 
waning  class  of  materialists,  whom  Germany  exe¬ 
crates  under  the  name  of  the  Fleshly  School  of  Phi¬ 
losophy,  defend  polygamy.  Schoepenhauer  is  better 
'  known  in  Germany  than  here  ;  and,  if  I  may  whisper 
the  whole  truth,  it  is  that  there  is  authority  for  say¬ 
ing  that  he  deserted  his  mother  and  his  sisters,  lived 
in  considerable  comfort  himself,  allowed  them  to  pass 
through  life  usually  in  want,  and  that  his  references 
to  marriage  have  behind  them  a  life  which  would 
be  a  sufficient  reply  to  his  theory,  if  only  the  life 
could  be  blazoned  out  before  the  world  as  the 
theory  has  been.  Ask  shrewd  men  who  know  the 
facts,  and  you  will  find  a  similar  statement  true  of 
the  majority  of  our  social  deformers.  I  open  the  infi¬ 
del  Strauss,  and  I  find  him  saying  in  so  many  words 
that  the -New  Testament  has  “ascetic”  notions  con- 

l 

cerning  marriage ;  that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
especially,  is  to  be  criticised  for  lack  of  knowledge 
of  human  nature ;  that  we  must  consent  to  lax  opin- 

\ 

i 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


21 


ions  and  laws  as  to  divorce ;  and  that,  on  the  whole, 
the  scientific  method  has  nothing  to  show  in  favor  of 
the  Biblical  ideals  concerning  marriage.  ( Der  Alte 
und  der  Neue  Grlaube ,  Leipzig,  18T2,  pp.  252-261.) 
Who  is  Strauss  ?  He  is  the  leading  infidel  writer  of 
the  last  fifty  years  in  Germany,  although  outgrown 
now.  This  book  of  his  I  brought  from  the  Rhine 
when  arrows  were  falling  on  it  thick  and  fast,  not 
from  conservative  ranks,  but  from  materialistic  and 
rationalistic.  Upon  the  appearance  of  this  work,  — 
“The  Old  and  New  Faith,”  —  Strauss’s  former  sup¬ 
porters  said,  “We  cannot  indorse  many  of  these 
propositions,  although  mixed  with  what  we  call  sound 
philosophy.  We  cannot  defend  this  last  book.” 
And  yet  Strauss,  in  this  volume,  tries  to  make  a  com¬ 
plete  cathedral  out  of  his  system,  and  to  bring  it  into 
architectural  symmetry.  One  of  the  central  arches 
in  it  stands  on  this  proposition,  that  we  must  discard, 
as  unscientific,  such  ideas  concerning  marriage  as  the 
Bible  supports. 

Let  Strauss  continue  to  look  into  the  eyes  of 
Panthea. 

There  are  two  styles  of  attack  on  family  life :  one, 
that  of  bold  infidelity;  and  the  other,  that  of  false 
religion.  Must  I  mention  Swedenborg  as  an  exam¬ 


ple  of  the  latter  form  of  assault  ?  Distinguish  always 
Swedenborg  from  Swedenborgianism.  You  will  not 
understand  me  to  accuse  Swedenborgianism  of  a  cen¬ 
tral  mischief  which  must  be  charged  upon  Sweden¬ 
borg.  I  have  reverence  for  that  religious  body  which 
is  called  Swedenborgian.  Its  life  by  no  means  con- 


22 


MARRIAGE. 


forms  to  every  thing  in  Swedenborg’s  writings.  He 
did  not  write  the  articles  of  its  creed.  Although  no 
one  can  call  Swedenborg  an  infidel,  he  is  a  representa¬ 
tive  of  the  attack  of  false  religion  upon  Christian  ideas 
concerning  the  family  life.  This  style  of  teaching 
twaddles  and  twaddles;  talks  religiosity  instead  of 
religion ;  drops  into  sentimentality ;  and  finally,  out 
of  softness  and  effeminateness,  and  a  false  philosophy, 
justifying  both,  comes  to  set  God’s  word  itself  on 
the  side  of  license ;  and,  looking  through  the  colored 
glass  of  its  own  erratic  constitution,  believes  the 
universe  to  be  of  the  colors  of  the  windows  through 
which  it  gazes.  What  does  Swedenborg  say  ?*  I 
suppose  that  if  he  were  on  the  globe  to-day,  he 
would  cancel  most  of  the  infamous  teaching  that  can 
be  cited  from  him  now;  but  here  is  his  unsectarian 
biographer,  White  (Swedenborg,  His  Life  and 
Writings ,  London,  186T,  vol.  ii.  pp.  418,  419;  see 
also  Conj.  Love ,  by  Swedenborg,  paragraphs  444  to 
476  inclusive),  and  he  is  obliged  to  write  page  after 
page  of  declamation  against  Swedenborg’s  brutal 
neglect  of  one  class  of  women.  There  are,  indeed, 
in  portions  of  Swedenborg’s  writings,  lofty  thoughts 
concerning  marriage.  Some  of  the  subtlest  propo¬ 
sitions  ever  put  before'  the  world  on  this  topic,  he  has 
advocated ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  concealed  that  one 
part  of  the  system  of  thought  which  he  represents, 
and  for  which  no  one  should  make  the  denomination 
called  by  his  name  responsible,  since  its  scholars 
practically  repudiate  him  as  this  biographer  does,  jus¬ 
tifies  things  which  would  give  Sodom  gladness. 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY. 


28 


The  detestable  Oneida  Community  is  an  example 
of  false  religion  more  loathsome  than  even  Mormon- 
ism  or  Mohammedanism.  But  bring  up  Islam,  bring 
up  Mormonism,  bring  up  Oneida  and  Wallingford, 
bring  up* every  scheme  that  has  undertaken  to  show 
that  natural  law  is  not  harmonious  with  the  scrip¬ 
tural  ideas  concerning  marriage  and  the  family 
life,  and  let  them  all  gaze  here  into  the  eyes  of 
these  pagan  women,  and  of  all  who  have  resembled 

them. 

I  ask  now  these  different  gazers  to  listen,  and 
what  do  they  hear?  The  curse  of  womanhood. 
They  hear  the  curse  of  manhood,  too.  They  hear 
the  curse  of  experience.  The  curse  of  old  Rome  is 
audible ;  for,  as  our  Woolsey  says,  she  rose  by  the 
sanctity  of  family  life,  and  fell  when  the  sanctity 
was  undermined.  (Ex-Pkesident  Woolsey,  Di¬ 
vorce,  chap,  i.)  But  tell  these  women  what  has  hap¬ 
pened  since  their  time.  Let  them  know  how  Cicero, 
one  of  the  best  of  the  Romans,  put  away  his  wife 
Terentia,  for  no  offence,  and  married  Publilia,  that 
he  might  pay  his  debts,  and  lived  with  her  but  a 
year.  How  would  the  flaming  indignation  of  Pan- 

then,  and  Phocion’s  wife,  and  this  Pompeiian  maiden, 
rise  to  a  white  heat,  when  it  had  only  a  red  heat 
before,  could  you  tell  them  what  has  happened  since 
their  time,  and  could  you  whisper  to  these  women 
that  we  have  had  loftier  ideals  taught  the  ages ! 
After  we  have  had  eighteen  hundred  years’  experi¬ 
ence  of  what  pure  families  can  do,  after  we  have 


24  MARRIAGE. 

been  taught,  not  only  at  the  mouth  of  science,  but 
at  that  of  higher  authority,  how  to  manage  the 
family,  what  would  not  their  indignation  be ! 

My  first  business  is  to  impanel  a  jury  consisting 
chiefly  of  pagan  arbitrators.  These  three  women, 
Phocion’s  wife,  Panthea,  and  the  Pompeiian  daughter, 
shall  have  the  earliest  places  on  this  unprejudiced 
tribunal. 

If  you  could  bring  before  them  a  tithe  of  the  deg¬ 
radation  that  has  come  from  the  divergence  of  the 
ages  from  their  natural  ideals,  and  of  the  blessing 
that  has  come  from  adherence  to  these  ideals,  would 
you  not  find  Panthea  looking  into  Strauss’s  eyes, 
into  Swedenborg’s,  into  the  eyes  of  Schoepenliauer 
and  Swinburne  and  the  rest,  with  overawing  curse  ? 
But  what  if  the  fre e-lovers  of  our  modern  day  were 
to  come  up  here,  and  gaze  into  the  eyes  of  these 
three  women,  and  all  whom  they  represent  ?  What 
if  a  certain  Victoria  on  this  side  the  sea,  who  is  at 
the  bottom  of  her  sex,  as  the  Victoria  on  the  other 
side  is  at  the  top  [applause],  could  meet  the  eyes  of 
her  own  sex  at  its  best,  and  thus  ascertain  what  is 
natural  ? 

Let  these  three  pagan  female  souls  gaze  into  the 
eyes  of  the  souls  of  men  who  are  neither  masculine 
nor  feminine,  but  so  corrupt  in  theory  or  practice 
that  nothing  can  make  either  sweet  —  I  fear,  not 
even  a  woman’s  curse.  This  condemnation  comes 
from  the  depths  of  the  human  soul.  Its  lightnings 
cannot  be  averted  in  the  name  of  the  scientific 


INFIDEL  ATTACK  ON  THE  FAMILY.  25 

method.  Look  down  the  ages,  Panthea  and  Phocion’s 
wife,  and  thou  Pompeiian  daughter,  into  the  eyes  of 
all  Swinburnes  and  Rousseaus.  Mrs.  Browning’s 
words  are  those  of  science,  — 

“  A  curse  from  the  depths  of  womanhood 
Is  very  bitter  and  salt  and  good.” 


[Applause.] 


# 


II. 

A  SUPREME  APEECTION  BETWEEN  TWO. 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  SECOND  LECTURE  IN  THE  BOSTON 
MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  FEB.  25. 


But  only  three  in  all  God’s  universe 

Have  heard  this  word  thou  hast  said:  Himself,  beside 

Thee  speaking  and  me  listening!  and  replied 

One  of  us  .  .  .  that  was  God!  .  .  .  and  laid  the  curse 

So  darkly  on  my  eyelids  as  to  amerce 

My  sight  from  seeing  thee,  —  that  if  I  had  died, 

The  deathweights  placed  there  would  have  signified 
Less  absolute  exclusion.  Nay  is  worse 
From  God  than  from  all  others,  O  my  friend! 

Men  could  not  part  us  with  their  worldly  jars, 

Nor  the  seas  change  us,  nor  the  tempests  bend: 

Our  hands  would  touch  for  all  the  mountain-bars :  — 
And,  heaven  being  rolled  between  us  at  the  end, 

We  should  but  vow  the  faster  for  the  stars. 

Mrs.  Browning:  Portuguese  Sonnet . 

Felices  ter  et  amplius, 

Quos  irrupta  tenet  copula,  nec,  malis 
Divulsus  querimoniis, 

Suprema  citius  solvet  amor  die. 

Horace:  Ode  i.  13, 17. 


II. 

A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO. 

PRELUDE  ON  CUBRENT  EVENTS. 

Allow  me  to  put  two  dignified  political  scenes 
into  contrast,  one  American  and  the  other  English. 
Both  are  described  by  eye-witnesses. 

“A  distinguished  senator  strolled  back  and  forth,  with  that 
spongy  and  uncertain  action  of  the  knees,  which  plaintively 
suggests  that  one  foot  or  the  other  has  been  caught  in  a  skein 
of  sewing-silk.  His  arms  went  around  every  man  he  met,  in 
some  maudlin  embrace;  and  both  sides  of  his  desk  were 
needed  when  he  rose  to  vote.  There  was  another  senator,  dis¬ 
tinguished  for  his  opposition  to  the  pending  bill,  who  dis¬ 
played  great  anxiety  ‘to  strike  out  the  second  line  of  the 
word  government;’  finally,  by  help  of  diligent  whispering,  a 
man  prompting  and  supporting  on  each  side,  gave  his  amend¬ 
ment  correctly,  dropped  back  in  a  drunken  stupor ;  the  amend¬ 
ment  was  voted  down ;  he  woke,  rose,  repeated  his  amendment, 
repeated  it  the  third  time  (senators  around  him  nearly  crazy 
with  mirth),  and,  at  last  persuaded  in  his  befogged  mind, 
he  tottered  from  group  to  group,  denouncing  the  unfairness 
of  a  vote  on  his  amendment  ‘while  I  was  down  at  dinner.’ 
He  dined  at  five ;  the  amendment  was  voted  on  after  ten.  Still 
a  third  senator,  for  thirty  years  the  honored  leader  of  a  great 
party  in  a  great  State,  passed  from  his  seat  to  the  cloak-room, 

29 


80 


MARRIAGE. 


and  the  cloak-room  to  his  seat,  only  by  wide-apart  steps  and 
supporting  chairs,  and  when  he  reached  his  seat  fell  there  into 
a  drunken  sleep,  in  one  of  the  pauses  of  a  debate  in  which  he 
was  endeavoring  to  join,  and  did  join  when  he  awoke  —  having 
slept  with  a  man  thundering  at  him,  two  feet  from  his  desk  — 
with  incoherent  exclamations  and  doubtful  answers  to  a  simple, 
plain,  and  easy  question.  There  were  other  senators  less  noisy 
and  farther  gone,  —  one  at  full  length  on  his  desk  and  chair, — 
legislating  on  the  silver  question,  as  Congress  insists  on  legis¬ 
lating  on  that,  and  many  other  questions,  —  eyes  shut,  and 
mouth  wide  open.” 

Macaulay  describes  the  corresponding  English  * 
scene ;  and  every  syllable  in  the  picture  has  a  vivid, 
trustworthy  gleam. 

“  LordNorreys  was  whistling,  and  making  all  sorts  of  noises. 
Lord  Maidstone  was  so  ill-mannered,  that  I  hope  he  was  drunk. 
At  last,  after  much  grossly  indecent  conduct,  at  which  Lord 
Eliot  expressed  his  disgust  to  me,  a  furious  outbreak  took 
place.  O’Connell  was  so  rudely  interrupted,  that  he  used  the 
expression  ‘beastly  bellowings.’  Then  rose  such  an  uproar  as 
no  mob  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  no  crowd  of  Chartists  in 
front  of  a  hustings,  ever  equalled.  Men  on  both  sides  stood 
up,  shook  their  fistsv  and  bawled  at  the  top  of  their  voices. 
O’Connell  raged  like  a  mad  bull,  and  our  people,  —  I,  for  one, 
—  while  regretting  and  condemning  his  violence,  thought  it 
much  extenuated  by  the  provocation.  Charles  Butler  spoke 
with  talent,  as  he  always  does ;  and  with  earnestness,  dignity, 
and  propriety,  which  he  scarcely  ever  does.  ‘If,’  said  Lord 
Maidstone  to  O’Connell,  ‘the  word  beastly  is  retracted,  I  shall 
be  satisfied.  If  not,  I  shall  not  be  satisfied.’  —  ‘I  do  not  care 
whether  the  noble  lord  is  satisfied  or  not.’  —  ‘  I  wish  you  would 
give  me  satisfaction.’  —  ‘I  advise  the  noble  lord  to  carry  his 
liquor  meekly.’  At  last  the  tumult  ended  from  absolute  physi¬ 
cal  weariness.  It  was  past  one,  and  the  steady  bellowers  of 


A  SUPKEME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  31 


the  opposition  had  been  howling  from  six  o’clock,  with  little 
interruption.  I  went  home  with  a  headache,  and  not  in  high 
spirits.” 

The  date  of  this  English  scene  is  1839.  That  of 
the  American  is  1878. 

The  peril  of  the  present  hour  in  the  United  States, 
and  of  many  a  moment  in  our  crowded  and  hazard¬ 
ous  future,  is  bondage  to  uneducated  and  bewildered 
opinion.  God  deliver  us  from  a  pickpocket  Congress 
[applause],  a  part  of  it  drunk!  [Applause.] 

The  American  scene  is  in  the  Upper  House.  The 
British  is  in  the  Lower  House.  Where  is  drunken  • 
disorder  the  more  dangerous,  —  in  the  Senate  at 
Washington,  the  Upper  House  of  a  republic,  or  in 
the  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  the  Lower  House  in 
a  monarchy?  You  would  have  been  surprised  if 
this  scene  which  Macaulay  describes  had  occurred  in 
the  House  of  Lords ;  but  our  Senate,  if  its  height  of 
dignity  is  measured  by  the  power  it  possesses,  is  a 
loftier  body  than  the  House  of  Lords. 

Is  it  affirmed  that  we  ought  not  to  be  troubled  by 
this  last  scene  in  the  Senate,  because  things  were 
worse  thirty  and  fifty  years  ago  there?  It  is  said 
that  in  1830,  in  the  cloak-rooms,  in  night  sessions, 
whiskey  was  kept  on  tap,  and  a  tin  cup  allowed  to 
swim  on  the  surface  of  the  liquor,  inside  the  barrel 
or  the  can.  But  it  is  affirmed  that  in  1878  the 
three  highest  officers  of  the  government  refuse  to 
furnish  intoxicating  liquors  to  their  guests,  and  that 
such  a  fashion  was  never  before  authoritatively  set 
in  Washington.  It  is  said  that  we  ought  to  take 


82 


MARRIAGE. 


heart  from  the  fact  that  these  shameful  scenes  are 
exciting  remark  now,  while  they  would  not  have 
done  so  thirty  or  forty  years  ago.  I  undertake  to 
affirm  that  there  is  no  more  honor  in  the  Senate  now 
than  there  was  fifty  years  ago,  when  habits  of  ine¬ 
briation  were  worse.  It  takes  more  courage  to-day 
to  fall  into  beastly  habits  in  a  senator’s  chair,  than 
it  did  fifty  or  thirty  years  ago ;  for  public  light  has 
increased  on  this  theme.  Is  there  now  more  honor 
in  public  life  than  at  that  period  of  our  history 
which  preceded  the  overthrow  of  sound  civil  service 
regulations?  We  have  had,  since  Washington’s 
election  to  the  Presidency,  forty  years  of  very  good 
management  of  our  civil  service,  and  fifty  years  of 
very  bad ;  and  the  honor  of  public  men  seems  to 
have  been  lowered  vastly  within  the  last  fifty  years 
as  compared  even  with  what  it  was  under  Jefferson, 
and  especially  with  what  it  was  under  Washington. 
Although  men  in  Washington’s  day  drank  more  than 
now,  although  they  drank  more  through  Adams’s 
day,  and  Jefferson’s  day,  and  Madison’s,  and  Mon¬ 
roe’s,  it  is  certain  that  senatorial  drunkenness  to-day 
is  a  keener  proof  of  lack  of  honor  than  it  once  was. 
Have  inebriate  Congressmen  any  account  to  settle 
with  their  constituents  ?  Has  the  day  gone  by  when 
it  is  a  good  electioneering  argument  for  a  candidate 
in  this  country,  that  he  gets  drunk  ? 

Charles  O’ Conor  thinks  that  there  lies  ahead  of 
us  in  American  history  a  popular  demand  for  the 
abolition  of  State  taxes  for  public  common  schools. 
(Johnson’s  Cyclopaedia ,  article  on  Democracy.)  Al- 


A  SUPKEME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  33 


ready  taxation  for  the  maintenance  of  high  schools 
is  unpopular  in  certain  quarters.  My  topic  is  not 
Congressional  drunkenness.  This  little  scene  points 
to  the  larger  theme  of  American  bondage  to  unedu¬ 
cated  opinion. 

The  West  is  filled  with  New-England  people,  and 
its  press  is  at  sword’s-points  with  that  of  the  sea¬ 
board,  and  with  that  of  much  of  the  South,  on  a 
great  financial  question,  in  regard  to  which  Europe 
is  on  the  side  of  the  East.  I  take  up  the  ablest 
British,  French,  and  German  journals,  and  I  find 
excoriation  after  excoriation  of  the  present  pick¬ 
pocket  legislation  in  Congress.  The  paying  of  a 
debt  by  eighteen  shillings  to  the  pound  cannot  be 
repeated  often,  says  England.  She  looks  across  the 
water,  and  remarks  calmly,  “  We  have  a  large  debt 
here  in  Great  Britain.  We  pay  three  per  cent  inter¬ 
est  for  the  money  we  borrow.  You  must  pay  six  per 
cent.  On  most  of  your  debt  you  are  paying  that 
already.  The  rate  of  interest  rises  in  proportion  to 
the  badness  of  the  security.  Spendthrifts  who  may 
become  defaulters  cannot  borrow  money  for  a  song.” 

Test  your  silver  legislation  by  the  single  inquiry, 
whether  you  can  borrow  money  more  easily  after  it 
than  before.  The  question  answers  itself.  But  who 
pays  the  interest  on  the  national  debt,  the  bond¬ 
holder  or  the  tax-payer?  Can  an  individual  or  a 
nation  obtain  low  interest  except  by  good  credit? 
The  champion  of  a  sound  currency  is  the  champion 
of  good  credit.  The  champion  of  good  credit  is  the 
champion  of  low  interest.  The  champion  of  low 


84 


MARRIAGE. 


interest  is  the  champion  of  the  tax-payer.  The 
champion  of  inflated  currency  is  the  champion  of  bad 
credit.  The  champion  of  bad  credit  is  the  champion 
of  high  interest,  and  the  enemy  of  the  tax-payer. 

The  silver  bill  is  not  now  in  such  monstrous  form 
as  it  was  when  it  was*  first  proposed.  Congress,  how¬ 
ever,  has  agreed  to  pay  its  creditors  in  depreciated 
coin.  Who  believes  that  this  was  its  contract? 
“We  promised  to  pay  in  coin”  the  West  says. 
“  That  was  the  language  of  the  bond.”  Does  any 
but  bewildered  opinion  maintain  that  the  govern¬ 
mental  engagement  to  pay  in  coin  did  not  mean  coin 
of  full  and  not  depreciated  value?  What  could 
have  been  the  inducement  to  lend  money  to  gov¬ 
ernment  if  the  promise  had  been  to  pay  in  depre¬ 
ciated  metal?  Everybody  by  the  phrase  payment 
“  in  coin  ”  understood,  of  course,  payment  in  coin  of 
full  commercial  value.  So  Europe  understood  the 
promise,  as  she  proves  by  now  sending  back  her 
bonds  with  indignation.  The  quibbling  over  this 
one  phrase,  and  the  style  in  which  millions  have 
been  misled  by  it,  is  not  an  argument  in  favor  of 
the  abolition  of  State  taxes  for  common  schools. 

The  East  believes  that  there  was  a  contract  made 
to  pay  a  hundred  cents  on  a  dollar,  and  that  nothing 
should  rule  the  case  but  the  contract.  The  widows, 
the  soldiers,  the  people  of  small  incomes,  who,  ac¬ 
cording  to  government  statistics,  own  the  majority  of 
the  bonds,  understood  that  they  were  not  to  be  paid 
in  a  coin  of  a  depreciated  value.  [Applause.]  I 
affirm  that  when  the  government  promised  to  pay  in 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  35 


coin,  it  meant  to  pay  in  coin  of  full  value,  and  not  in 
coin  worth  only  ninety-two  cents  on  a  dollar.  [Ap¬ 
plause.] 

President  Eliot  of  Harvard  said  the  other  day  at 
Hew  York,  that  the  diffusion  of  the  mere  rudiments 
of  education  among  the  masses  of  a  nation  never  has 
and  never  will  prevent  that  nation  from  falling  into 
great  dangers.  In  this  country  we  have  the  golden 
link  of  training  and  capacity,  and  an  iron  link ;  but 
we  have  no  silver  link  to  connect  the  two.  The  iron 
link  does  not  believe  in  the  golden  link.  It  might 
believe  in  a  silver  link,  were  such  an  intermediate 
stage  of  training  in  existence ;  and  that  link  would 
believe  in  the  golden.  The  great  need  of  the  United 
States  is  a  wider  diffusion  of  the  intermediate  higher 
education. 

I  heard  the  silver-tongued  orator  of  Boston  assert 
yesterday  that  Plarvard  University  has  never  sent 
a  man  out  from  her  classic  shades  with  a  heart  warm 
for  the  people.  She  sent  him  out.  [Applause.]  She 
sent  out  Charles  Sumner.  She  listened,  in  the  very 
year  when  my  class,  decimated  by  war,  left  the  stu¬ 
dious  halls  yonder,  to  a  coronation  commemoration 
ode  for  Lincoln,  written  by  a  Lowell,  who  has  criti¬ 
cised  America,  indeed,  sharply,  but  who  is,  I  suppose, 
as  patriotic  a  poet  as  ever  put  pen  to  paper  since 
John  Milton  was  taken  up  into  the  Unseen.  [Ap¬ 
plause.]  Harvard  cold  !  Her  president  affirms  that 
she  gives  two  and  a  half  times  more  instruction  to¬ 
day  than  any  other  college  in  the  United  States.  It 
is  not  safe  to  assume  that  his  official  statement  is 


86 


MARRIAGE. 


an  exaggeration.  He  assures  us  in  the  face  of  the 
nation,  that  Harvard,  while  neglecting  none  of  the 
humanities,  is  endeavoring  more  and  more  to  train 
journalists,  social  economists,  statesmen,  who  can 
lead  the  people  on  practical  affairs  of  finance  and 
politics.  In  all  ways  instruction  is  being  enlarged 
in  practical  directions.  For  one,  I  feel  that  I  should 
like  to  go  back,  and  pass  through  the  university 
again,  in  order  to  get  equipment  for  the  tasks  that 
come  upon  a  man  in  public  life.  I  know  now,  better 
than  I  knew  in  college,  what  the  worth  is  of  the 
high  inspiration  I  received  there ;  and  I  afhnn  that, 
for  one,  coming  out  of  Harvard  in  the  year  the  civil 
war  closed,  I  came  .out  with  reverence  for  the  An¬ 
drews  and  the  Sumners,  and  the  Garrisons  and  the 
Phillipses,  and  all  who  led  us  in  that  great  historic 
epoch.  No  doubt,  the  faults  of  Americans  have  crit¬ 
ics  yonder  and  in  all  our  colleges.  There  are  as 
many  opinions  in  Harvard  Universit3T  as  elsewhere. 
But  for  an  American  to  affirm  that  the  great  uni¬ 
versity  has  done  nothing  but  choke  reform,  when 
to-day  she  is  more  nearly  abreast  of  sound  popular 
sentiment  than  any  other  university  in  the  world, 
is  to  foul  one’s  own  nest.  [Applause.]  Harvard 
needs  no  defence  from  the  charge  that  she  never 
sent  out  a  man  with  a  heart  warm  for  the  people, 
except  the  names  of  Phillips  and  Sumner  and  Lowell, 
and  those  of  the  young  martyrs  whom  Andrew  placed 
at  the  perilous  front  in  the  civil  war. 

Landor  says  that  a  little  butter  on  a  platter  is  a 
good  thing,  but  that  the  same  butter  melted  and 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  37 


sprinkled  over  the  whole  tablecloth  is  not  available. 
That  is  a  metaphor  which  you  will  not  relish,  but 
which,  I  think,  you  will  understand.  God  deliver 
us  from  bondage  to  an  uneducated  and  bewildered 
opinion  of  masses  not  educated  beyond  the  rudi¬ 
ments,  and  unwilling  to  trust  the  leadership  of  their 
own  sons  who  are ! 

George  Combe  said  that  the  education  of  the  citi¬ 
zens  of  Boston  in  1840  was  only  enough  to  fit  them 
for  that  amount  of  political  power  which  belongs  to 
the  people  of  Spain  or  Austria. 

Who  are  the  men  who  have  left  Harvard  College  ? 
Some  of  them  were  charity-scholars  there.  I  know 
a  revered  ex-president  of  that  institution,  who,  when 
he  was  in  the  university,  cracked  stones  on  a  macad¬ 
amized  road  to  pay  his  board-bills,  and  in  other  ways, 
teaching  and  writing,  carried  himself  through  with 
great  hardship.  Is  he  now,  simply  because  he  is  a 
great  scholar,  simply  because  he  comes  from  an  insti¬ 
tution  that  has  the  name  of  being  aristocratic,  not  to 
be  allowed  to  say  any  thing  to  the  people,  to  the 
masses,  to  the  suffering  and  the  toiling  millions? 
He  has  suffered  and  toiled.  Our  educated  great 
men  come  often  from  the  farms  and  workshops.  All 
American  people  are  of  the  people.  Are  the  better- 
trained  part  of  the  people  not  to  be  regarded  as 
American  ?  Where  are  we,  that  we  begin  to  intro¬ 
duce  here  class  prejudice  between  those  who  are  edu¬ 
cated,  or  those  whose  own  efforts  may  have  secured 
to  themselves  a  competency,  and  those  who  by  shift¬ 
lessness,  and  by  lacking  enthusiasm  for  education, 


38 


MARRIAGE. 


stand  at  the  bottom  of  the  social  scale?  God  made 
'  certain  differences  among  men ;  but  where  there  is  no 
lack  of  opportunity,  where  no  man  can  take  a  posi¬ 
tion  except  by  deserving  it,  and  where  he  cannot 
hold  it  long  unless  he  doubly  deserves  it,  and  holds 
it  against  rivalry,  it  is  opposition  to  the  spirit  of 
American  institutions  to  assail  the  upper  part  of  the 
people  in  the  name  of  the  lower.  [Applause.] 

Let  us  have  no  leading-strings  for  the  people,  ex¬ 
cept  those  which  experience  proves  to  be  absolutely 
necessary,  —  intelligence  and  integrity,  —  but  let  us 
have  these.  Break  me  either  the  one  or  the  other  of 
these  bridle-stays ;  give  me  either  insufficient  intelli¬ 
gence  or  insufficient  integrity ;  throw  down  the  reins 
on  the  neck  of  ignorance  and  unconscientiousness, 
and  much  graver  questions  than  whether  public  debts 
shall  be  paid  by  ninety-two  cents  on  a  hundred  will 
soon  be  decided  !  A  new  America  is  before  us,  —  an 
era  of  cities.  A  fifth  of  our  population  is  in  great 
towns  at  this  moment.  There  is  no  political  office 
waiting  for  me,  and  I  am  waiting  for  no  political 
office ;  but  I  am  one  citizen  here,  and  I  hope  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  some  of  us  younger  men, 
of  a  generation  which  has  suffered  already  in  sup¬ 
port  of  the  Union,  think  that  the  time  has  come 
when  American  bondage  to  uneducated  and  bewil¬ 
dered  opinion  should  be  throttled  as  quite  as  danger¬ 
ous  as  bondage  to  the  slaveholder.  [Applause.] 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  39 


THE  LECTURE. 

Pliny  the  younger  had  two  favorite  villas,  one  in 
sight  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  another  at  the  edge 
of  the  Apennines.  He  was  a  pagan,  but  it  was  his 
fortune  To  write  to  the  Emperor  Trajan  a  famous 
letter,  describing  the  habits  of  the  early  Christians. 
He  wrote  another  letter,  which  ought  to  be  famous, 
and  the  subject  of  it  is  his  wife  :  — 

“  She  loves  me,  the  stirest  pledge  of  her  virtue ; 
and  adds  to  this  a  wonderful  disposition  to  learning, 
which  she  has  acquired  from  her  affection  to  me. 
She  reads  my  writings,  studies  them,  and  even  gets 
them  by  heart.  You  would  smile  to  see  the  concern 
she  is  in  when  I  have  a  cause  to  plead,  and  the  joy 
she  shows  when  it  is  over.  She  finds  means  to  have 
the  first  news  brought  her  of  the  success  I  meet  with 
in  court.  If  I  recite  any  thing  in  public,  she  cannot 
refrain  from  placing  herself  privately  in  some  corner 
to  hear.  Sometimes  she  accompanies  my  verses  with 
the  lute,  without  any  master  except  love,  the  best 
of  instructors.  From  these  instances  I  take  the  most 
certain  omens  of  our  perpetual  and  increasing  happi¬ 
ness,  since  her  affection  is  not  founded  on  my  youth 
or  person,  which  must  gradually  decay ;  but  she  is 
in*love  with  the  immortal  part  of  me.”  (Pliny  the 
YOUNGER,  Letter  concerning  his  wife  Caljpurnia ,  to  her 
aunt.) 

Thus  reads  a  letter  which  we  find  in  the  rubbish 
produced  as  old  Rome  began  to  crumble,  and  as  her 
walls  fell,  the  ghastly  secrets  dropping  down  in  the 


40 


MARRIAGE. 


debris  which  has  not  been  all  shovelled  away  yet 
from  the  foundations  either  of  her  evil  or  her  good. 
There  the  letter  sparkles  like  a  gem ;  but  it  is  pagan 
in  every  angle,  and  in  every  flash  of  light. 

Go  with  me  now  into  the  most  pagan  portion  of 
our  modern  history,  —  the  period  represented  by  the 
horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,  —  and  rake  over 
the  debris  produced  by  the  fall  of  the  Bastille.  Old 
secrets  came  to  view  when  that  prison  of  tyranny 
was  sacked.  Long-buried  despair  found  voice.  Read 
this  portion  of  an  old  letter,  and  contrast  it  with 
Pliny’s  :  “  If,  for  my  consolation,  Monseigneur  would 
grant  me,”  says  one  of  the  prisoners,  “  for  the  sake 
of  God  and  the  most  blessed  Trinity,  that  I  could 
have  news  of  my  dear  wife,  were  it  only  her  name  on 
a  card,  to  show  that  she  is  alive,  it  were  the  greatest 
consolation  I  could  receive,  and  I  should  forever 
bless  the  greatness  of  Monseigneur.”  “Poor  pris¬ 
oner,”  says  Carlyle,  —  stern  Scotchman,  tender  as 
any  drop  of  dew,  and  yet  bold  as  any  lion,  —  “poor 
prisoner,  who  namest  thyself  Queret  Fernery ,  and 
hast  no  other  history,  she  is  dead ,  —  that  dear  wife 
of  thine,  —  and  thou  art  dead  !  ’Tis  fifty  years  since 
thy  breaking  heart  put  this  question,  to  be  heard 
now  first,  and  long  heard,  in  the  hearts  of  men.” 
(Carlyle,  The  French  Revolution ,  vol.  i.  book  v. 
chap,  vii.) 

I  am  to  ask  you  to  assemble  to-day  in  Pliny’s  villa ; 
and  I  wish  you  to  bring  with  you  this  French  pris¬ 
oner,  and  also  Hampden,  from  the  death-field  yonder 
at  Chalgrove  Bridge,  where  he  met  Rupert.  You 


A  SUPBEME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  41 


know  Hampden  was  a  close  associate  of  Cromwell’s, 
and  that,  attacking  the  enemy’s  ranks,  he  received 
two  balls  which  entered  the  shoulder,  and  were  de¬ 
flected  into  his  body.  His  head  drooped,  and  his 
hands  sunk  on  the  neck  of  his  horse.  He  rode  feebly 
off  the  field;  and  tradition,  Macaulay  says,  repre¬ 
sents  him  as  looking  up,  putting  his  hand  upon  his 
forehead,  and  gazing  long  upon  the  manor-house  of 
his  father-in-law,  from  which  in  his  youth  he  had 
taken  away  his  wife  Elizabeth,  and  he  tried  to  go 
there  to  die.  (Macaulay,  Essays;  Lord  Nugent’s 
Memorials  of  Hampden.')  Stern  Puritan,  no  doubt 
a  wilted  nature,  desiccated  by  a  false  creed,  you 
say ;  but  Hampden’s  figure  there,  striving  in  death 
to  ride  toward  the  home  from  which  he  carried  off 
his  bride,  is  dignified  as  John  Milton’s,  dignified  as 
Cromwell’s,  and  as  little  desiccated  as  either.  Bring 
Hampden,  bring  the  poor  French  prisoner,  and  bring 
one  other  person,  to  Pliny’s  villa.  Cornelia,  wife 
of  Titus  Gracchus,  the  mother  of  the  renowned 
Roman  Gracchi,  lived  in  a  house  which  was  once 
assailed  by  two  serpents.  The  augur  said  that  if  the 
male  serpent  was  allowed  to  escape,  and  the  other 
killed,  Cornelia  would  die  before  her  husband ;  but 
that  if  the  female  was  allowed  to  escape,  and  the 
male  killed,  the  husband  would  die  first.  Titus 
Gracchus,  than  whom  there  has  never  been  a  more 
affectionate  husband,  although  a  pagan,  told  the  au¬ 
gurs  at  once  to  put  fortune  on  the  side  of  his  wife. 
He  trusted  the  augurs,  and  their  prophecy  did  happen 

to  come  true.  He  died  before  his  wife,  and  left  her 

«  7 


42 


MARRIAGE. 


with  twelve  children,  among  them  the  celebrated 
Gracchi.  She  rejected  every  offer  of  marriage,  be¬ 
cause  she  said  that  her  marriage  with  Titus  Gracchus 
continued.  She  was  offered  the  hand  of  Ptolemy, 
King  of  Egypt;  but,  says  Valerius  Maximus,  old 
pagan,  “  The  buried  ashes  of  her  husband  seemed  to 
lie  so  cold  at  her  heart,  that  the  splendor  of  a  diadem 
and  all  the  pomp  of  a  rich  kingdom  were  not  able  to 
warm  it  so  as  to  make  it  capable  of  receiving  the 
impression  of  a  new  love.” 

Bring  Hampden,  bring  the  French  prisoner,  bring 
Cornelia,  bring  the  Pompeiian  daughter  of  whom  we 
heard  lately,  bring  Panthea,  bring  Phocion’s  wife. 
Sit  down  here  in  Pliny’s  villa,  in  sight  of  the  Medi¬ 
terranean,  or  sit  down  in  that  other  residence  of  his 
gazing  on  the  Apennines,  and  watch  his  face  and 
theirs,  while  I  read  two  sets  of  propositions.  I  will 
summarize  first  in  Pliny’s  presence,  and  in  that  of 
Phocion’s  wife  and  Panthea  and  Cornelia,  what  I 
suppose  to  be  the  dictate  of  natural  law  concerning 
the  details  of  marriage.  I  know  what  I  venture,  but 
I  am  assembling  this  pagan  tribunal  in  order  that  we 
may  have  an  unprejudiced  hearing.  It  is  supposed 
that  those  who,  in  modern  times,  have  received  a 
Christian  education,  cannot  decide  on  this  topic  with¬ 
out  prejudice  ;  therefore  I  have  gathered  here  a  jury, 
before  which,  in  contrasted  propositions,  I  am  willing 
to  put  scientific  thought  and  unscientific  concerning 
marriage. 

1.  Pagan  ideals  of  marriage  make  a  supreme  affec¬ 
tion  its  only  natural  basis. 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  43 


Cornelia  bows  her  bead,  so  does  Pantbea,  so  does 
Phocion’s  wife.  Are  there  any  free-lovers  that  dare 
peep  into  the  door  of  Pliny’s  villa  after  having  heard 
his  letter  ?  Do  they  open  a  crevice  or  some  window, 
and  peer  in  leeringly  to  find  where  the  secrets  are 
here,  that  justify  their  contempt  of  human  nature 
and  their  unwillingness  to  believe  that  there  are 
sound  hearts  on  the  planet  ?  If  they  look  through 
this  lattice,  if  they  gaze  through  that  crevice  of  a 
door  yonder,  if  behind  them  any  of  the  old  Roman 
patrons  of  the  Saturnalia  stand,  let  both  the  ancient 
and  modern  pagans  look  into  the  face  of  this  jury 
while  I  plead  my  cause.  I  do  not  wish  to  speak  in  a 
corner.  Pagan  ideals  led  this  Panthea,  this  Cornelia, 
this  Pliny,  this  daughter  of  Pompeii,  to  make  a 
supreme  affection  the  basis  of  marriage;  and  they 
were  acting  from  almighty  instinct ;  they  were  utter¬ 
ing  the  voice  of  untutored  human  nature ;  they  cer¬ 
tainly  spoke  without  Christian  prejudice. 

2.  A  supreme  affection  can  exist  only  between 
two. 

Cornelia  thinks  that  this  holds  good  even  after  the 
death  of  one  of  the  two.  I  am  not  asking  her  to 
make  a  rule  of  that  proposition.  There  may  be  a 
second  supreme  affection,  and  perhaps  a  third;  but  I 
am  not  one  of  those  who  revere  a  second  as  a  first, 
nor  a  third  as  a  second.  [Applause.]  There  were 
Roman  poets  who  held  up  to  contempt  certain  ladies 
who  counted  their  years  by  the  number  of  their 
divorces.  If  you  wish  to  bring  to  Pliny’s  counte¬ 
nance,  or  to  that  of  Phocion’s  wife,  or  to  that  of 


44 


MARRIAGE. 


Cornelia,  a  look  of  supreme  scorn  and  loathing,  recite 
to  them  the  deeds  of  those  black  spirits  of  the  cor¬ 
rupt  Neronic  Roman  days.  We  see  the  faces  of 
these  women  yonder  through  the  lattice  and  crevice 
and  the  doors ;  and,  side  by  side  with  them,  those 
of  the  Brisbanes  and  the  Swinburnes,  our  modern 
pagans.  [Applause.]  I  know  where  I  am  speaking, 
and  over  what  thin  ice  I  pass ;  but  it  is  not  the  cus¬ 
tom  of  any  one  who  reveres  science  to  avoid  difficul¬ 
ties.  I  have  now  thrown  away  the  use  of  the  whole 
right  wing  of  the  army,  which  I  might  ask  for  as  my 
support.  I  believe  in  the  Christian  ideals.  They,  by 
and  by,  will  be  brought  before  us  here  for  Pliny’s  con¬ 
sideration.  They  are,  to  my  mind,  as  the  noon  com¬ 
pared  with  a  rushlight  when  put  into  contrast  with 
these,  the  best  outcome  of  pagan  ideals.  But  I  throw 
away  the  right  wing,  use  only  the  left  wing  of  the 
army,  come  out  here  upon  the  field  to  combat  these 
lies  and  this  blasphemy ;  and  with  only  the  left-hand 
wing  it  is  as  easy  to  defeat  the  modern  pagans,  as  it 
was  for  Pliny  to  defeat  the  ancient ;  for  he  had  only 
the  left-hand  wing. 

3.  In  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  therefore,  since 
a  supreme  affection  is  the  only  natural  basis  of  mar¬ 
riage,  the  law  of  monogamy  is  scientifically  justified. 

It  has  already  been  shown  here  that  the  law  of 
co-equal  heredity  justifies  monogamy.  Long  before 
great  Nature  awakens  in  any  animal  moral  conscious¬ 
ness,  it  begins  to  weed  out  polygamy,  even  from  the 
brute  race ;  and,  when  at  last  your  king  of  the  forest 
appears,!  the  lion  is  a  monogamist.  We  find  that  as 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  45 


the  animals  rise  in  the  scale,  there  are  more  and  more 
hints  in  the  direction  of  the  social  arrangements  which 
afterwards  show  themselves  to  be  natural  in  the 
human  case ;  and  that  thus,  from  the  earliest  devel¬ 
opment  of  life  up  to  its  highest,  Nature  —  by  which 
we  mean  always  God’s  will  expressed  in  his  works  — 
prepares  a  place  for  the  human  home  and  for  su¬ 
preme  affections  between  two.  Even  your  Sweden¬ 
borg,  whom  it  was  my  sad  duty  to  criticise  on  several 
points,  says  there  is  such  a  thing  on  the  globe  as  a 
supreme,  heavenly  conjugal  affection  between  two. 
This  is  ajfact  of  history,  of  human  experience,  abso¬ 
lutely  indisputable.  Now,  since  this"  style  of  affec¬ 
tion  can  exist  only  between  two,  the  law  of  monog¬ 
amy  is  scientifically  justified. 

4.  It  follows  also,  that,  until  a  supreme  affection 
exists,  a  marriage  cannot  take  place  naturally. 

Pliny  assents  to  this,  for  this  is  the  rule  he  fol¬ 
lowed.  So  do  Hampden  and  the  French  prisoner 
and  the  Pompeiian  daughter. 

5.  The  fact  of  the  existence  of  a  supreme  affec¬ 
tion  between  two  is  to  be  ascertained  by  adequate 
tests. 

6.  When  only  those  who  have  an  adequately  tested 
supreme  affection  for  each  other  are  married,  no 
fundamentally  unhappy  marriages  will  occur. 

T.  Every  marriage  without  a  supreme  affection 
is  against  natural,  and  ought  to  be  against  social, 
law. 

8.  When  marriages  are  natural,  according  to  this 
definition,  the  best  possible  means  for  the  preser- 


46 


MARRIAGE. 


vation  of  the  best  of  the  race  are  brought  into  ac¬ 
tion. 

9.  When  marriages  are  natural,  according  to  this 
definition,  children’s  rights  are  likely  to  be  adequately 
protected. 

10.  When  marriage  is  natural,  according  to  this 
definition,  the  family  obtains  in'  marriage  its  scientific 
justification. 

11.  When  marriages  and  families  are  natural  in 
this  sense,  all  infidel  attacks  on  the  family  become 
futile  and  blasphemous  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
scientific  method. 

We  look  through  the  lattice-work,  and  find  that 
we  have  interested  listeners  among  the  social  quacks 
and  pagans  of  ancient  and  modern  times.  I  do  not 
make  broad  charges ;  but  I  undertake  to  say  this,  that 
I  have  not  met,  thus  far  in  life,  any  advocate  of  the 
blasphemous  doctrines  in  the  social  range  of  philos¬ 
ophy,  who  has  not  been  more  or  less  a  practiser  of 
infamous  theories.  [Applause.]  Unhappy,  unnatu¬ 
ral  marriages  make  people  declaim  against  natural 
marriages.  But  how  do  unhappy  marriages  occur? 
By  violation  of  natural  law  proclaimed  in  all  the 
deepest  instincts, — rough,  liap-hazard,  audacious  vio¬ 
lation  of  the  most  sacred  instincts  of  man  and 

%  . . . . —  ..  _ 

woman !  The  inherent  penalty  of  an  unnatural 
marriage  is  fitly  characterized  as  the  hottest  human 
Gehenna  on  this  planet ;  and  men  roasted  there, 
women  grilled  on  that  gridiron,  are  indeed  likely  to 
clamor  about  their  troubles.  And  yet  they  violated 
great  Nature  at  first,  came  into  a  red-hot  cage,  when 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  47 


they  might  have  known  its  bars  were  blazing  iron, 
had  they  put  hands  or  eyes  on  the  grating  at  the 
first.  We  have  instincts  that  warn  us  out  of  such 
cages !  If  men,  shutting  their  eyes,  if  women,  tear¬ 
ing  out  the  instincts  of  the  deepest  soul,  will  plunge 
into  cages  of  that  sort,  why,  the  fault  is  with  the 
people  that  plunge  in,  and  not  with  the  cages.  I 
thank  God,  that  marriages  without  supreme  affection 
are  cages  of  red-hot ,  iron.  [Applause.]  Wendell 
Phillips  said  yesterday  in  this  city  that  all  the  black¬ 
ness  of  the  picture  of  evil  in  great  cities  pleased  him, 
for  the  perils  of  democracy  are  its  safety.  So  I  may 
say  that  the  sufferings  of  umtatural  marriages  are 
God’s  proclamation  of  their  unnaturalness.  [Ap¬ 
plause.]  Since  the  world  began,  have  not  people 
enough  writhed  in  the  red-hot  cages  of  marriages 
without  affection  to  teach  the  race  the  wisdom  of  the 
burned  child  who  dreads  the  fire?  If  our  eaves¬ 
droppers  want  sympathy,  they  had  better  ask  me  for 
it,  rather  than  Pliny.  They  had  better  ask  me,  be¬ 
cause  I  have  been  brought  up  in  an  age  of  luxury, 
when  advanced  thought  is  in  the  air,  and  when  more 
than  one  State  of  the  American  Union  relaxes  the 
divorce-laws  to  a  point  resembling  that  style  of 
-legislation  which  Augustus  Caesar  tried  to  prevent. 
Pliny  here  has  made  pleas  against  just  such  divorce- 
laws  as  certain  American  commonwealths  have  had 
foisted  upon  their  statute-books  in  moments  of  care¬ 
lessness. 

I  do  not  believe  the  deliberate  sentiment  of 
America  justifies  lax  divorce-laws;  but  in  various 


48 


MARRIAGE. 


ways,  this  topic  not  having  had  the  agitation  it  de¬ 
serves,  we  have  allowed  the  deformers  to  get  a  hear¬ 
ing,  and  their  conspiracies  to  obtain  power,  until  we 
are  disgraced  in  certain  commonwealths  by  a  laxness 
of  divorce  legislation,  of  which  our  Woolsey  is 
obliged  to  devote  a  volume  to  exposing  the  errors 
and  the  dangers ;  and  he  holds  up  old  Rome  at  its 
best  to  shame  us.  Edmund  Burke  once  was  obliged 
to  oppose  in  Parliament  an  unfortunate  marriage 
law.  He  closed  a  passage  of  marvellous  eloquence 
by  these  words :  “  Why  do  I  speak  of  parental  feel¬ 
ing?  The  children  are  parties  to  be  considered  in’ 
this  legislation.  The  mover  of  this  bill  has  no  child.” 
Charles  James  Fox,  in  the  same  debate,  rushed  for¬ 
ward  with  his  contagious  fire  of  manner  and  of 
thought  and  emotion,  to  the  speaker’s  desk,  and  took 
up  the  bill.  The  orginal  draft  was  not  so  bad,  but 
amendments  had  been  thrust  into  it,  which  altered 
it  in  a  manner  to  make  the  whole  detestable.  Fox 
lifted  up  the  bill  before  the  gaze  of  Parliament. 
The  amenGlments  were  written  in  red  ink,  the  original 
in  black.  Shaking  the  parchment  there,  Fox  recited 
Shakspeare’s  words :  — 

“  Look  !  in  this  place  ran  Cassius’  dagger  through  ; 

See  what  a  rent  the  envious  Casca  made ; 

Through  this  the  well-beloved  Brutus  stabbed  ;  * 

And  as  he  plucked  the  cursed  steel  away, 

Mark  how  the  blood  of  Csesar  followed  it.” 

In  the  same  way  I  would  shake  before  Boston  cer¬ 
tain  Christian  regulations  originally  characterizing 
our  legislation  on  divorce ;  and  then,  pointing  out  the 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  49 


red  amendments  which  have  been  thrust  into  the 
Connecticut  and  the  Indian  aparchments,  I  shall  be 
justified  by  you  and  by  history  in  saying,  “  Through 
this  the  well-beloved  modern  Pagan  stabbed:  mark 
how  the  blood  has  followed  the  accursed  steel.” 
[Applause.] 

Pliny  assents  when  I  say  that  unless  marriages  are 
natural,  according  to  this  definition,  children’s  rights 
are  likely  to  be  but  poorly  protected.  But  we  now 
hear  a  serpentine  whisper  from  under  this  crevice, 
and  under  this  lattice,  u  Let  children  be  taken  care 
of  by  the  State.”  I  am  afraid  of  my  jury  when  I 
look  into  Cornelia’s  face  !  “  The  State  !  ”  Pliny  says : 
“there  would  be  no  state  if  there  were  no  family!  ” 
[Applause.]  While  we  recall  Burke’s  words,  there 
is  another  whisper :  “  Let  marriage  be  dissolvable  at 
will.”  Burke  says  again,  coming  here  in  the  air, 
“  This  speaker  has  no  children.”  “  Or,”  says  Cor¬ 
nelia,  “if  she  has,  her  heart  is  that  of  the  ostrich, 
that  leaves  her  eggs  in  the  sand,  and  knows  nothing 
of  the  loftiest  impulse  of  nature  aside  from  marital 
affection,  —  maternal  love.”  [Applause.] 

An  unnatural  hideous  whisperer,  coming  up,  it 
would  seem,  from  the  volcanic  rifts,  or  somewhere 
from  the  Pompeiian  ashes,  out  of  which  infamies  are 
dug  up  to-day,  addresses  Pliny,  and  Phocion’s  wife, 
and  Panthea,  and  Cornelia,  mother  of  the  Gracchi: 
“  Let  us  have  a  community.  Let  us  have  complex 
marriage.”  —  “  What  is  your  name  ?  ”  —  “  Noyes.”  — 
“  Where  were  you  educated  ?  ”  —  “  At  Andover  Theo¬ 
logical  Seminary.”  What  a  fall  is  there !  [Ap¬ 
plause.] 


50 


MARRIAGE. 


“  Him  the  Almighty  Power  ' 

Hurled  headlong  flaming  from  the  ethereal  sky, 

With  hideous  ruin  and  combustion. 

«•••••••• 

Nine  times  the  space  that  measures  day  and  night 
To  mortal  men,  he  with  his  horrid  crew 
Lay  vanquished,  rolling  in  the  fiery  gulf : 

.  .  .  but  his  doom 

Reserved  him  to  more  wrath  ;  for  now  the  thought 
Both  of  lost  happiness  and  lasting  pain 

Torments  him :  round  he  throws  his  baleful  eyes, 

•  •  •  •  •  •  ■  •  •  • 

Mixed  with  obdurate  pride  and  steadfast  hate.” 

Milton,  Paradise  Lost ,  book  i.  44-58. 

The  ghostly  propositions  of  socialism  receive  only 
hisses  from  our  pagan  jury,  for  when  we  question 
this  interlocutor  we  find  him  saying  that  maternal 
love  must  be  uprooted.  “  Our  system  is  to  give  no 
mother  the  care  of  her  children.  Christianity  has 
made  all  things  common.”  We  call  hither  Neander. 
There  is  a  passage  in  the  New  Testament  which 
affirms  that  at  a  certain  period  the  early  Church  made 
all.  things  common;  but  Neander  says  it  is  perfectly 
evident  from  the  context,  that  this  contains  no  dec¬ 
laration  of  communism  of  any  sort,  that  the  subse¬ 
quent  institutions  of  the  apostles  are  all  in  the  line 
of  sound  thought  and  the  ideals  of  all  time,  and  that 
every  attempt  to  twist  out  of  that  part  of  the  Bible 
authority  for  socialism  is  not  only  idiocy,  but  blas¬ 
phemy.  But  this  man  does  not  hear  Neander.  Your 
poor  interrupter  yonder  in  the  crevice  thinks  Nean- 
der  was  prejudiced.  He  was  Christian.  And  Pliny 
will  walk  forward,  and  Cornelia,  Phocion’s  wife,  and 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  51 


this  Pompeiian  daughter,  Hampden  and  the  French 
prisoner ;  all  of  them  will  rise,  and  -come  with  Pliny 
forward,  and  look  into  this  man’s  face.  He  is  not 
there  when  they  reach  the  place !  [Applause.]  I 
hold  in  my  hand  a  report  made  lately  by  the  synod 
of  Central  New  York,  and  drawn  by  a  professor  of 
Hamilton  College,  summing  up  facts  which  I  cannot 
recite  here,  and  running  a  red-crooked  thunderbolt 
through  that  infamy  of  Oneida  ;  and  I  hope  that  soon, 
what  scholarship  and  piety  have  already  done  for 
this  loathsome  scandal  will  be  done  by  legislation. 
[Applause.] 

[Previous  to  the  lecture  Mr.  Cook  read  the  follow¬ 
ing  statement  and  request :  — 

“  The  undersigned  are  of  opinion  that  many  important 
errors  of  fact  in  criticisms  on  the  Monday  Lectureship  are  mis¬ 
leading  the  public.  Will  Mr.  Cook  have  the  kindness  to  point 
out  the  more  important  of  them?” 

This,  Mr.  Cook  said,  was  signed  by  doctors  of 
divinity.  One  of  the  signatures  was  that  of  a  theo¬ 
logical  professor.  On  account  of  the  great  respecta¬ 
bility  of  this  request,  he  would  venture  to  take  a  few 
minutes  after  one  o’clock  to  reply  to  errors  of  fact 
which  are  misleading  the  public.  [Applause.]  After 
the  doxology  had  been  sung  at  the  close  of  the  lec¬ 
ture,  Mr.  Cook  spoke  as  follows.] 

1.  It  is  blunderingly  proclaimed  that  Mr.  Cook 
affirms  that  rationalism  is  on  the  decline  in  Germany. 
What  he  said  is  that  it  is  on  the  decline  in  the  Ger¬ 
man  universities  among  “  those  whose  special  study 


52 


MARRIAGE. 


is  theology”  (. Bibliotheca  Sacra ,  October,  18T5,  p. 
769),  —  a  very  different  proposition.  Over  and  over 
the  language  used  here  speaks  of  the  “specialists 
in  religious  science,”  or  “the  decline  of  rational¬ 
ism  among  theological  experts,”  or  the  greatest  au¬ 
thorities  in  exegetical  research.  ( Transcendentalism , 
p.  29,  and  Orthodoxy ,  pp.  838-340.)  A  young  writer, 
who,  it  seems,  has  been  for  a  short  time  professor  in 
one  of  our  smallest  New  England  colleges,  overlooks 
utterly  this  wide  and  reiterated  distinction,  and  sum¬ 
marizes  Mr.  Cook’s  position  by  the  phrase,  “  Rational¬ 
ism  is  on  the  decline  in  Germany.”  This  proposition, 
for  which  Mr.  Cook  is  no  more  responsible  than  for 
the  assertion  that  the  man  in  the  moon  is  an  Hegelian, 
the  haughty  critic  goes  on  to  combat  elaborately  by 
painstaking  history  and  statistics.  The  real  proposi¬ 
tion  which  this  lectureship  defends,  and  which  has 
great  importance,  because  of  the  power  of  specialists 
to  lead  all  scholarly  thought  in  Germany,  the  critic 
never  attacks  once.  Nor  does  he  attack  one  of  the 
seven  acknowledged  facts  Mr.  Cook  published  in  an 
article  in  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra  (October,  1875),  in 
support  of  this  proposition,  and  which  never  have 
been  questioned  by  criticism  through  the  two  years 
since  that  article  was  given  to  the  public  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Besides,  the  circumstance  that 
the  relative  number  of  theological  students  has  dimin¬ 
ished  in  Germany  is  brought  forward  as  if  it  were 
new  to  Mr.  Cook.  The  latter,  as  you  are  all  aware, 
has  himself  fully  discussed  this  state  of  facts,  and 
explained  it  in  the  eightieth  Monday  lecture,  —  the 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  53 


last  in  the  hook  entitled  “  Orthodoxy  ”  (pp.  838- 
341).  On  the  basis  of  this  inexcusable  misconcep¬ 
tion  of  Mr.  Cook’s  meaning,  the  critic  endeavors 
through  page  after  page  to  raise  the  presumption 
that  the  Monday  lectureship  is  incautious  in  its  state¬ 
ments.  It  is  amazing  to  find  such  utterly  and  baldly 
careless  or  unfair  criticism  in  a  religious  periodical 
and  proceeding  from  a  professor.  I  do  not  know 
what  Yale  College  has  against  me,  except  that  I  left 
it,  and  went  to  Harvard.  I  was  not  turned  out  of 
Yale  [applause],  and  intend  not  to  deserve  to  be. 

2.  The  Monday  Lectureship  speaks  neither  to  nor 
for  ministers.  This  has  been  asserted  again  and 
again,  until  the  proposition  must  be  wearisome. 
Over  and  over  it  has  been  proclaimed  here,  that  this 
lectureship  is  only  an  outlook  committee,  making 
reports  which  must  be  tested  and  taken  for  what 
they  are  worth.  Your  lecturer  has  no  relatives  in 
this  audience.  He  hires  nobody  to  come  here.  He 
never  asked  a  favor  of  newspapers,  and  never  will, 
although  he  has  been  treated  royally  by  them  all. 
[Applause.]  But  this  critic  says  that  u  it  is  under¬ 
stood  that  Mr.  Cook  is  personally  responsible  for  this 
published  demand  of  'attention  on  the  ground  of  es¬ 
tablished  pre-eminence  in  the  world  of  scholarship. 
Mr.  Cook,  through  the  extravagance  of  his  claims, 
forces  a  strictness  of  criticism  he  would  otherwise 
have  avoided.” 

All  this  is  strangely  inaccurate.  It  is  one  of  the 
felicities  of  discussion  in  this  lectureship,  that  it  is 
utterly  free  from  the  bondage  of  being,  or  of  wish- 


) 


54  MARRIAGE. 

ing  to  be,  representative  or  official.  Mr.  Cook  has 
asked  no  one  to  be  responsible  for  what  is  uttered . 
here.  Except  by  wholly  voluntary  expressions,  no 
one  is  thus  responsible. 

The  lecturer  on  this  platform  ran  some  little  risk, 
and  runs  it  yet.  He  refused  to  take  any  parish ;  and 
it  was  his  opinion  that  possibly  there  might  be  inter¬ 
est  enough  in  certain  great  themes,  on  the  relations 
between  religion  and  science,  to  pay  a  man  a  small 
income,  —  not  enough  to  provide  for  a  family,  but 
enough  to  take  care  of  a  single  person,  living  pretty 
near  the  sky.  That  was  the  plan  of  life  on  which 
he  came  to  this  city.  He  asked  nobody’s  financial 
support.  At  the  present  moment  he  lectures  in  this 
Temple  at  a  loss  of  two  hundred  dollars  every  time 
he  speaks,  —  so  says  his  lecture-agent.  Excuse  me 
for  alluding  to  this  point ;  but  when  I  am  accused, 
as  I  am  again  and  again  in  the  sceptical  sheets,  of 
standing  here  as  a  mercenary,  then  I  beg  leave  to 
point  to  past  voluntary  risks,  and  present  voluntary 
losses.  [Applause.]  Of  course  I  know  that  a  base¬ 
line  in  Boston  is  worth  something  to  a  lecturer  in  the 
United  States ;  but  when  a  man  has  given  a  hundred 
lectures  consecutively  in  this  city,  on  difficult  topics, 
and  printed  fifty-five  of  them,  he  is  tested  about  as 
adequately  as  most  lecturers  are  before  they  feel 
under  their  feet  a  sufficient  groundwork  for  their 
effort.  [Applause.] 

3.  This  critic  asserts  that  the  intuitions  are  not 
every  thing,  and  that  Mr.  Cook  falls  into  confusion 
of  thought  by  bringing  forward  instinct,  experience, 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  55 


and  syllogism  as  co-ordinate  tests  of  truth.  The 
critic  informs  Mr.  Cook  that  syllogism  stands  on 
self-evident  truth ;  an  amazing  proposition,  which  I 
never  heard  before  !  In  Andover  Seminary,  where  I 
spent  four  years,  it  was  my  fortune  to  employ  the 
larger  part  of  my  leisure  for  two  years  in  reading  on 
logic  exclusively ;  and  this  proposition  that  syllo¬ 
gism  rests  on  the  intuitions,  I  had  seen  before  I  fell 
upon  it  in  this  criticism.  When  I  make  instinct 
and  experiment  co-ordinate  with  the  intuitions,  I 
mean  to  put  a  check  upon  the  hazy  theorizing  of 
transcendentalism,  falsely  so  called.  All  a  'priori 
reasoning,  all  argument  from  self-evident  truth,  must 
be  tested  by  experience.  All  I  mean,  as  this  audi¬ 
ence  well  knows,  is,  that  we  must  take  these  four 
tests,  and  find  an  agreement  between  them  before  we 
can  feel  that  the  earth  is  firm  under  our  feet.  It  is 
wholly  false  to  assert  that  all  the  four  tests  have  not 
been  used  here.  The  definition  of  these  different 
tests* was  distorted  in  the  review;  and  of  course  it 
is  easy,  from  a  distorted  definition,  to  draw  ludicrous 
inferences.  I  suppose  you  have  heard  of  Dickens’s 
description  of  the  steamboat  “Agawam,”  which  he 
saw  on  the  Connecticut.  He  said  it  was  half-pony 
power,  and  eighteen  feet  short  and  nine  feet  nar¬ 
row,  being  neither  long  nor  wide.  I  ain  not  refer¬ 
ring  to  the  college,  for  which  I  have  reverence  and 
affection,  but  to  the  philosophy  represented  by  this 
critic.  [Applause.] 

4.  As  to  the  authorship  of  an  extract  from  Car¬ 
lyle’s  remarks  on  Darwin,  a  virulent  attack  has  been 


56 


MARRIAGE. 


made  on  this  lectureship,  and  is  completely  answered. 
A  distinguished  literary  gentleman  writes  to  me : 
“For  myself,  I  can  assure  you  that  I  have  the  most 
unreserved  confidence  in  the  lady  who  wrote  the 
letter.  I  know,  as  well  as  we  can  know  any  thing 
we  do  not  see  and  hear  ourselves,  that  Mr.  Carlyle 
said  what  you  have  quoted  in  a  conversation.  I  know 
this  lady  is  intimate  with  the  De  Morgans,  whom  I 
also  know,  and  who  live  a  door  or  two  from  Carlyle, 
and  are  intimate  with  him.  I  will  give  you  any 
statement  you  need  to  substantiate  your  quotation.’’ 
A  well-known  American,  a  public  man,  was  with  this 
lady  when  the  conversation  occurred,  and  assisted 
in  making  a  record  of  it,  and  he,  in  the  strongest 
terms,  indorses  the  language  as  authentic.  The  ex¬ 
tract  was  first  published  in  America.  It  was  copied 
into  a  Scottish  newspaper  as  a  letter  from  Carlyle, 
and  thence  into  the  London  Times.  The  Spencer 
and  Lecky  party  in  London  circles  obtained  from 
Carlyle  a  denial  that  he  wrote  such  a  letter,  but  not 
that  such  a  conversation  occurred.  Luskin  has  cited 
the  words,  and  expressed  the  opinion  that  they  will 
be  long  remembered.  Mr.  Cook  has  been  bitterly 
assailed  because  his  taste  coincided  with  Ruskin’s  as 
to  the  propriety  of  diffusing  this  public  information. 

5.  In  summing  up  the  criticisms  thus  far  upon  that 
portion  of  the  Monday  lectures  which  touch  biology, 
I  find  that  the  specialists  who  have  expressed  an 
opinion  on  that  fraction  of  the  discussions  here  are 
six.  First,  ex-President  Thomas  Hill  has  written  a 
review  of  the  Lectures  on  Biology,  and  it  is  favorable 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  57 


from  beginning  to  end.  He  is  assuredly  a  specialist 
in  philosophy.  He  is  a  great  authority  and  a  discov¬ 
erer  in  mathematical  research.  He  has  given  un¬ 
usual  attention  to  biological  science.  Next,  Pro¬ 
fessor  McCrady,  who  was  one  of  the  successors  of 
Agassiz,  but  who  had  trouble  with  the  Darwinian 
party  at  Cambridge  as  did  Agassiz  himself,  and  is 
now  professor  of  biology  in  the  University  of  the 
South,  has  written  a  review,  as  many  of  you  know  ; 
and  it  is,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  criticisms  on 
minor  points,  favorable.  Dr.  George  M.  Beard,  a 
lecturer  before  the  New-York  Medical  School,  and 
mentioned  with  honor  by  Carpenter  for  original 
research  in  biology,  has  published  a  learned  work 
of  three  hundred  pages,  which  has  been  translated 
into  German  with  high  commendation  by  a  professor 
at  the  University  of  Jena.  This  expert  has  written 
two  reviews  of  “Biology,”  and  both  of  them  favor¬ 
able.  He  is  the  man  who  read  the  final  proof-sheets 
of  that  book,  every  page  of  them,  before  it  was 
issued.  Professor  Bowne  of  Boston  University,  who 
has  published  a  work  on  Herbert  Spencer,  which  is 
one  of  the  best  volumes  that  can  be  referred  to  on 
that  whole  topic,  has  reviewed  “Biology”  favorably. 
He  has  found  fault  with  it  on  a  few  points,  and  I  am 
glad  he  has ;  but  affirms  that  one  or  two  criticisms 
made  by  him  would  now  be  changed  in  view  of  sub¬ 
sequent  discussions  here. 

Possibly  I  ought  to  say  that  I  hold  in  my  hand  a 
letter  from  a  distinguished  physician  of  London,  Dr. 
J.  M.  Winn,  which  begins,  “  My  friend  Lionel  Beale 


58 


MARRIAGE. 


kindly  loaned  me  your  Boston  Lectures  on  Biology 
to  read.  This  must  be  my  apology  for  writing  to 
you,  and  expressing  the  great  gratification  I  have 
derived  from  a  perusal  of  your  triumphant  reply  to 
the  arguments  of  the  materialists  derived  from  phys¬ 
ical  science.” 

It  thus  appears,  that,  out  of  six  persons  who  have 
criticised  “  Biology  ”  as  specialists,  five  are  for  it. 
(See  the  opinions  of  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra ,  and  Brit¬ 
ish  Quarterly ,  and  of  Professor  Schoberlein  of  Gotting¬ 
en  University,  and  of  Professor  Ulrici  of  Halle, 
among  estimates  cited  by  the  publishers  in  the  pres¬ 
ent  volume.) 

y  % 

6.  The  great  blunder  which  the  few  unfavorable 
critics  of  u  Biology  ”  fall  into  is,  that  they  overlook 
the  distinction  drawn  here  between  the  two  ques¬ 
tions,  “Does  Death  End  All?”  and  “Is  the  Soul 
Immortal?”  These  inquiries  are  by  no  means  sy¬ 
nonymous.  Answer  the  first  in  the  negative,  and  you 
have  not  proved  that  the  second  is  to  be  answered  in 
the  affirmative.  It  is  true,  however,  that  a  negative 
answer  to  the  first  greatly  facilitates  an  affirmative 
answer  to  the  second.  Answering  the  first  nega¬ 
tively  removes  objections  to  an  affirmative  answer  of 
the  other.  I  discuss  in  “  Biology  ”  the  first  question. 
I  think  there  is  evidence  that  the  materialists’  alleged 
proof,  that  death  does  end  all,  is  not  good  for  any 
thing.  This  is  the  central  proposition  of  the  booh. 
Some  of  this  proof  is  physiological,  some  psycho¬ 
logical.  The  physiological  part  of  it  has  been  very 
significantly  strengthened  by  the  advances  of  micro- 


A  SUPREME  AFFECTION  BETWEEN  TWO.  59 

scopical  and  biological  science  in  the  last  thirty  years. 
I  think  we  can  make  it  not  only  highly  probable,  but 
morally  certain  from  physiological  and  psychological 
argument,  that  death  does  not  end  all.  So  far  I  de¬ 
pend  on  reason.  As  to  the  second  question,  I  depend 
on  revelation  in  the  manner  indicated  in  the  “pri¬ 
vate  creed  ”  quoted  in  “  Biology  ”  (p.  306).  With 
the  average  materialistic  sceptic,  however,  the  point 
of  most  importance  is,  to  show  from  physiology  that 
death  does  not  end  all.  Upon  this  point,  therefore, 
I  have  concentrated  attention.  Careless  and  narrow 
theological  and  scientific  critics  think  that  I  am  dis¬ 
cussing  the  second  question,  and  claiming  too  much 
for  the  physiological  argument,  when  I  am  only  dis¬ 
cussing  the  first  inquiry.  The  principle  involved  in 
the  argument  used  here  is  the  usual  one,  although 
some  of  the  emphases  are  new.  As  Butler  in  his 
Analogy  endeavors  to  remove  objections,  and  then 
to  bring  forward  the  Scripture  argument,  so  this  dis¬ 
cussion  which  I  give  to  the  first  question  is  intended 
to  remove  objections,  and  prepare  the  way  for  the 
Scriptural  argument  on  the  second. 

Several  critics  have  overlooked  my  distinction  be¬ 
tween  vitality  and  life,  and  so  have  attributed  to  me 
the  preposterous  notion  that  every  cell  sends  a  ghost 
into  the  unseen  world.  As  to  the  immortality  of 
instinct,  I  make  no  affirmations  not  contained  in  But¬ 
ler’s  and  Agassiz’  well-known  positions.  I  deny  the 
pre-existence  of  the  soul.  The  latter  topic  was  dis¬ 
cussed  in  detail  in  the  ninety-seventh  and  ninety- 
eighth  Boston  Monday  lectures,  to  which  I  refer  for 


60 


MARRIAGE. 


a  fuller  statement  of  the  distinction  between  vitality 
and  life. 

It  'was  my  wholly  undeserved  fortune,  the  other 
day,  to  be  elected  to  the  Victoria  Institute,  the  Phil- 
.  osophical  Society  of  Great  Britain,  with  the  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury  for  its  president,  and  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  Canon  Liddon,  and  many  specialists, 
among  its  members ;  but  I  think  that  election  must 
have  occurred  before  the  periodical  I  am  criticising 
reached  the  other  side  of  the  water.  [Applause.] 

“  Non  tali  auxilio,  nec  defensoribus  istis 
Tempus  eget.” 


[Applause.] 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE. 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  THIRD  LECTURE  IN  THE  BOSTON 
MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  MARCH  4. 


You  did  me  the  honor,  perhaps,  to  he  moved  at  my  side  now 
and  then 

In  the  senses  —  a  vice  I  have  heard  which  is  common  to 
beasts  and  some  men. 

Mrs.  Browning:  Lord  Walter's  Wife. 

If  a  man  is  to  keep  his  health,  would  you  allow  him  to  have  a 
Corinthian  girl  as  his  fair  friend?  Certainly  not.  —  Plato:  The 
Republic,  Book  iii.  40-1. 


I 


* 


/) 


III. 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE. 

PEELTJDE  ON  CTJEEENT  EVENTS. 

[The  despatches  from  England,  March  3,  announ¬ 
cing  Ruskin’s  death,  were  credited  in  Boston,  and 
commented  on  elaborately  in  an  obituary  and  a 
leading  article  in  the  Advertiser  on  the  morning  of 
March  4.  This  prelude,  although  an  anachronism,  is 
allowed  to  stand,  it  will  so  soon  be  history.] 

John  Ruskin  is  at  home,  and  among  his  kinsfolk. 
The  rough  ways  of  this  world,  which  his  feet  trod, 
not  without  offence  and  laceration,  they  will  never 
press  painfully  again.  Some  of  us  were  his  pupils, 
and  we  shall  be  lonelier  henceforth,  until  we,  too, 
enter  the  unseen  region  into  which  all  men  haste. 
Poor  infant,  there  at  Friar’s  Crag  on  Derwentwater, 
Ruskin  gazed  through  the  hollows  in  the  mossy  roots 
over  the  cliff  into  the  gleaming  lake  !  This  was  his 
first  memory.  The  intense  joy  mingled  with  awe, 
which  he  had  even  then,  in  the  presence  of  the  works 
of  the  Supreme  Power,  followed  him  through  life. 
He  never  forgot  the  palpitation  of  that  first  moment 
of  wonder.  Ruskin’s  delight  in  nature  was  such  that 

63 


4r 


64 


MARRIAGE. 


it  would  often  make  him  shiver  from  head  to  foot 
with  the  joy  and  fear  of  it,  when,  after  being  some 
time  away  from  the  hills,  he  first  reached  the  shore 
of  a  mountain  river  where  the  brown  water  circled 
among  the  pebbles,  or  when  he  saw  the  first  swell  of 
distant  land  against  the  sunset,  or  the  first  low  broken 
wall  covered  with  mountain  moss.  He  has  come  to 
a  high  broken  wall  now  —  and  passed  through  it ! 
He  has  seen  the  first  swell  of  a  distant  land  against 
a  sunrise.  He  has  reached  the  shore  of  a  river, 
where  crystalline  water  circles  among  pebbles  cast 
down  from  everlasting  mountains.  Through  the 
tangled  roots  of  his  disgust  with  this  world,  which 
he  did  not  approve,  although  you  and  I  are  in  it,  he 
is  gazing  now,  we  must  suppose,  if  his  faith  was 
correct,  upon  the  far  gleaming  of  a  sea  before  a 
Throne  from  the  presence  of  which  by  and  by  the 
heavens  and  earth,  which  he  loved  in  our  present 
low  estate,  will  flee  away,  as  unclean.  What  are  the 
awe  and  bliss  of  the  new  infant  in  whose  experiences 
the  sea  of  glass  is  substituted  for  Derwentwater  ? 
Let  us  not  doubt  that  he  would  gladly  inspire  us 
who  remain  on  this  lonely  shore,  with  his  present  rev¬ 
erence  for  the  upper  as  well  as  for  the  lower  range 
of  the  works  of  Omnipotence  and  Omniscience. 

Luskin’s  love  of  beauty  was  a  master-passion ; 
and  yet,  after  all,  his  love  of  justice  and  moral 
worth  was  still  more  intense.  His  love  of  truth  was 
so  filled  with  his  love  of  beauty,  and  his  love  of 
beauty  so  filled  with  his  love  of  truth,  that  you 
hardly  know,  in  his  criticisms,  whether  he  speaks 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE. 


65 


more  as  a  prophet  or  as  an  artist.  The  genuine¬ 
ness  of  the  true  was  to  him  always  a  part  of  the 
symmetry  of  the  beautiful.  Within  the  range  of 
the  faculties  needed  by  an  art-critic,  he  seems  to 
have  been  full-orbed.  The  difference  between  our 
haughtiest  commonplaces  and  what  he  has  said  on 
his  own  theme  is  that  between  a  truncated  cone, 
a  stunted  shrub,  and  the  full  tree,  taking  its  top 
and  radiance  of  growth  from  nearness  to  the  sun. 
No  doubt,  flaws  can  be  found,  even  in  his  best 
productions ;  but  we  are  to  judge  what  Ruskin  has 
published  as  an  art-critic,  not  by  comparing  it  with 
absolute  perfection,  but  by  contrasting  it  with  what 
other  men  have  done.  Macaulay  said,  that,  when 
he  compared  his  history  with  the  seventh  book  of 
Thucydides,  he  felt  discouraged;  but  that,  when 
he  contrasted  it  with  the  best  work  in  the  same 
department  in  his  own  time,  he  felt  that  he  had 
some  ground  for  encouragement.  Now,  who  as  an 
art-critio  deserves  to  be  named  on  the  same  day  with 
this  spirit  that  is  at  last  with  the  archangels  ?  Ac¬ 
cording  to  the  belief  which  was  the  real  inspiration 
of  his  life,  we  must  assert  that  he  now  has  first 
learned  what  art  is,  having  entered  into  the  world 
from  which  all  its  prototypes  and  ideals  proceed. 

As  a  political  economist,  Ruskin,  you  say,  was  a 
failure ;  but,  although  assuredly  he  was  not  as  fully 
equipped  in  this  department  as  in  the  range  of  art 
criticism,  put  his  third  character  with  his  second, 
look  at  him  as  a  philanthropist  and  political  economist 
together,  and  who  will  affirm  that  any  man  of  letters 


66 


MARRIAGE. 


and  art  in  onr  day  has  had  a  more  courageous  career 
than  Ruslan  ?  He  has  endeavored  to  put  into  action 
some  things  of  which  Carlyle  has  only  preached. 
Born  to  wealth,  he  has  devoted  the  better  part  of 
his  fortune  to  philanthropy.  He  was  no  communist. 
He  was  no  wild  declaimer  for  the  abolition  of  prop¬ 
erty.  He  did  talk,  as  Wordsworth  sang,  against  the 
introduction  of  railways  and  factories  into  the  heart 
of  rural,  green  England.  W e  think  W ordsworth  was 
possessed  of  more  sensitiveness  than  sense,  on  this 
subject, — perhaps  we  think  the  same  of  Ruskin, — 
but,  at  bottom,  this  art-critic  meant  to  protest  against 
the  grinding  down  under  the  soot  of  the  factory  and 
the  railway,  and  of  our  “  machine  and  Devil  driven 
age,”  to  use  his  own  language,  the  love  of  beauty,  the 
love  of  cleanliness,  even  the  sense  of  self-respect, 
among  the  poor.  We  never  shall  see  girls  go  back 
to  spinning-wheels.  We  never  shall  have  men  using 
sickles  again,  as  reapers  on  the  sunny  fields  of  Eng¬ 
land.  But  Ruskin  meant  well  in  his  St.  George 
Society ;  and  I  dare  predict  that  a  hundred  years 
from  now,  when  England  is  more  crowded  than  she 
is  to-day,  the  memory  of  his  philanthropic  motive, 
and  the  incisive  radiance  of  many  a  bright  gem  of 
political  and  social  suggestion  which  his  questionable 
discussions  of  political  economy  have  contained,  will 
gleam  far  across  the  years,  to  his  credit. 

Ruskin  was  a  master  of  English  prose ;  and  he 
was  this  because  he  had  a  full  nature,  and  was  obliged 
to  express  it.  The  more  style  expresses,  the  better, 
especially  if  its  range  of  expressiveness  be  in  the 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  67 


upper,  subtler,  moral  emotions,  and  the  finer  aesthetic 
perceptions.  That  upper  range  of  perception  and 
emotion  does  not  belong  to  the  soul  of  a  quadru¬ 
ped,  nor  the  expression  of  it  to  quadruped  rhetoric. 
If  we  live  principally  in  that  quadruped  range,  we 
shall  no  doubt  find  the  loftier  biped  range  unnatural. 
There  is  a  quadruped  rhetoric,  and  there  is  a  biped 
rhetoric.  Of  the  quadruped  rhetoric  we  have  a  dis¬ 
mal  sufficiency  in  the  world ;  and  when  we  accustom 
ourselves  to  it  year  after  year,  in  the  newspapers  and 
the  average  rubbish  of  circulating  libraries,  we  are 
apt  to  think  that  any  thing  like  biped  rhetoric,  which 
alone  naturally  expresses  our  whole  spirit,  is  unlawful 
and  unnatural.  It  depends  much  on  the  company  a 
man  keeps,  which  he  likes  the  better,  quadruped  or 
biped  rhetoric.  The  one  is  as  natural  as  the  other. 
If  he  associates  with  the  Jeremy  Taylors,  with  the 
Miltons,  with  the  Richters,  the  Carlyles,  and  the 
Ruskins,  he  very  soon  will  come  to  love  an  expres¬ 
sive  style.  An  orator  needs  not  one  style,  but 
twenty  styles.  The  quadruped  rhetoric  fits  certain 
subjects,  and  may  be  learned  by  a  biped  who  will 
walk  on  all-fours.  But  to  be  kept  there !  —  this  is 
the  intolerable  bondage,  when  the  theme  demands 
another  style.  Those  born  to  the  brutish  style, 
however,  cannot  learn  the  human.  It  is  very  un¬ 
natural  for  a  quadruped  to  stand  on  two  feet ;  and 
I  suppose  the  biped  human  style  must  forever  seem 
unnatural  to  quadruped  rhetoricians.  [Applause.] 
Ruskin  was  a  biped,  because  fully  human.  Some  of 
his  phrases  will  live,  as  expressing  moods  of  soul 


68 


MARRIAGE. 


that  have  rarely  been  described  in  any  language. 
Some  of  th'em  will  live  simply  from  their  marvellous 
picturing  power.  If  I  were  to  attempt  the  difficult 
task  of  selecting  the  single  sentence  which  seems  to 
me  to  be  the  best  description  he  has  ever  written,  it 
would  be  the  one  he  has  referred  to  himself  ( Frondes 
Agrestes ,  section  81),  and  describing  the  striking  of 
a  heavy  ocean  surge  against  a  tremorless  cliff.  The 
words  are :  “  One  moment,  a  flinty  cave  ;  the  next, 
a  marble  pillar;  the  next,  a  fading  cloud.”  Why 
has  not  a  man  whose  soul  is  not  that  of  the  quad¬ 
ruped,  a  right  to  utter  all  there  is  in  it,  and  to 
obtain  expressions  for  the  loftiest  parts  of  his  nature, 
as  well  as  for  the  lower  ?  The  truth  is  that  we  give 
too  little  credit  to  the  really  Shakspearian  school  in 
the  literature  which  expresses  the  deeper  things  of 
the  soul.  Richter  founded  it  in  prose,  you  say ; 
Carlyle  has  carried  it  on ;  Ruskin  has  strengthened 
the  foundations  of  the  school.  Yes,  but  it  is  older 
than  they.  It  runs  back  to  Milton  and  Jeremy 
Taylor  and  Hooker.  It  runs  back  to  one  called 
Isaiah,  some  time  ago  ;  back  to  a  certain  David  who 
sang  psalms  which  twenty  centuries  have  echoed ; 
or  to  one  wdiom  we  call  Job;  or  to  another  whom  we 
call  Homer,  quite  a  long  time  ago.  Under  the  law 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  the  power  of  living 
literature  ought  to  be  tl^e  justification  of  its  style. 

Were  I  to  choose  out  of  all  Ruskin’s  writings  the 
one  sentence  which  best  reveals  the  open  secret  of  his 
suggestiveness  as  an  art-critic,  it  would  be  this :  “  The 
right  hand  of  Christ  first  strewed  the  snow  on  the 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  69 


Lebanon,  and  smoothed  the  slopes  of  Calvary.”  Al¬ 
low  yourselves  to  notice  what  a  belief,  such  as  utters 
itself  in  that  sentence,  does  for  a  man  !  I  must  call  a 
hush  here,  for  we  are  standing  at  Ruskin’s  grave,  to 
ask  for  the  secret  of  his  power.  We  may  say  securely 
that  it  was  Christian  faith.  Ruskin  believes  in  the 
Deity  of  our  Lord,  and  also  in  the  Unity  of  God.  The 
Hand  that  was  pierced  is  the  Hand  that  lifted  up  the 
hills ;  and  therefore, ‘behind  all  natural  law,  Ruskin 
saw  the  soul  that  wept  over  Jerusalem,  and  spoke  as 
never  man  spake.  Will  you  but  take  his  position  for 
a  moment?  Will  you  assume  that  these  propositions 
represent  actual  verities,  and  then  say  whether  the 
universe  does  not  become  a  burning  bush,  every  leaf 
of  it  aflame  with  the  fire  too  sacred  to  be  touched? 
His  extraordinary  equipment  as  art-critic,  his  marvel¬ 
lous  capacity  as  a  prose  poet,  all  that  God  gave  him 
inside  the  range  of  literary  capacity,  would  have  been 
but  the  cold  summit  of  the  Alps,  had  it  not  been  irra¬ 
diated  with  this  vision  of  the  Sun  which  lies  below 
the  horizon  of  unbelieving  lives.  I  must  blame  even 
Orthodoxy;  I  must  blame  what  calls  itself,  some¬ 
times,  scientific  Theism,  for  not  attaining  the  height 
of  Ruskin’s  outlook,  and  beholding  beneath  the  hori¬ 
zon  the  yet  unrisen  truth  of  the  Divine  omnipresence 
in  natural  laws,  and  its  transcendency  above  them  all. 
From  the  certainty  of  the  Divine  immanence  in  mat¬ 
ter  and  mind,  comes  to  the  loftiest  summits  of  litera¬ 
ture  the  mysterious  glow  of  the  Alpine  morning  dr 
sunset.  Ruskin  awes  us,  not  from  his  height  so  much 
as  from  a  certain  Divine  coloring,  filling  all  his  writ- 


70 


MARRIAGE. 


ings ;  and  that  coloring  proceeds  from  beneath  the 
horizon,  and  from  a  philosophical  Christian  faith.  I 
know  what  he  said  about  narrow  evangelical  views ; 
but  he  was  brought  up  in  them,  and  to  the  end  of  his 
days  he  lived  in  what  I  suppose  to  be  sound  ortho¬ 
doxy.  If  this  man  did  not  become  desiccated,  crip¬ 
pled,  and  was  not  brought  down  from  the  height  of 
aesthetic  and  philosophical  speculation  by  his  Chris¬ 
tian  belief ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  flinty  crags  of 
these  intellectual  heights  were  irradiated  by  that  be¬ 
lief,  and  made  an  inspiration  by  the  coloring  which  it 
gives  to  them,  we  well  may  gaze  after  him  into  the 
morning ;  we  well  may  look  upon  his  career  in  this 
life  as  but  the  upstretching  aurora  of  a  day  into  which 
he  now  has  entered,  only  to  find  that  what  he  learned 
here  of  the  Divine  immanence  in  matter  and  mind  is 
true  in  the  highest,  as  well  as  in  the  lowest,  of  God’s 
works.  Wherever  there  is  natural  law,  there  God’s 
will  acts ;  and  not  only  God’s  will,  but  our  Lord’s  will, 
for  God  is  one.  Wherever  there  is  a  touch  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  upon  conscience,  there  w'e  have  the  touch  of  the 
Supreme  Power  as  well  as  the  touch  of  our  ascended 
Lord.  In  this  faith  this  man  lived ;  in  it  he  swam 
through  the  three  periods  of  his  life,  —  through  that 
Oxford  period,  in  which  the  “  Modern  Painters  ”  was 
preparing ;  through  those  seventeen  years  in  which 
he  was  in  Venice  and  other  capitals  of  Europe  as  a 
student ;  and  through  the  twenty  in  which,  at  Cam¬ 
bridge  and  Oxford,  he  has  acted  as  professor.  Face 
to  face  with  all  the  philosophy  of  our  time,  this  man 
lived  and  died,  bathed  in  the  light  of  the  sun  behind 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  71 

c 

the  sun ;  and  was  not  ashamed.  If  the  radiance  of 
his  writings  is  seen  a  thousand  years  hence,  it  will 
be,  I  think,  not  because  of  the  gleam  of  the  art  criti¬ 
cism,  or  even  of  the  philosophy,  but  because  of  this 
overawing  light  that  came  from  a  dawn  yet  below  the 
edge  of  the  sky  of  sceptical  lives. 

Carlyle  said  of  Edward  Irving,  “  Adieu,  thou  first 
friend,  while  this  confused  twilight  of  existence 
lasts.  May  we  meet  where  twilight  has  become 
day !  ”  (. Essay  on  the  Death  of  Irving .)  Carlyle 
will  be  lonelier,  but  not  long.  Truly  life  is  sweet, 
and  a  pleasant  thing  it  is  to  behold  the  light  of  the 
sun ;  but  sweeter  is  life  beyond  life,  and  yet  more 
pleasant  is  it  to  behold  the  light  of  the  sun  behind 
the  sun. 


THE  LECTURE. 

The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have 
nests,  but  the  free-lover  has  no  home.  [Applause.] 
Great  Nature  seems  to  be  domestic  in  her  purposes ; 
for  even  the  brute  races  have  quiet,  secluded  spots, 
of  which  Almighty  Providence,  by  the  most  power¬ 
ful  instincts  in  the  brutes  themselves,  and  by  great 
arrangements  running  through  the  whole  domain  of 
life,  preserves  the  sacredness.  The  swallow  twitter¬ 
ing  under  the  eaves  builds  itself  a  home.  From  far 
Africa,  or  the  Brazils,  passing  over  numberless  rivers 
and  cities,  the  best  of  the  birds  bring  the  domestic 
impulse.  The  wren  no  less  than  the  eagle,  and  the 
eagle  no  less  than  the  wren,  mates  herself.  Each 
will  defend  her  young  at  the  risk  of  life.  Often 


72 


MARRIAGE. 


the  faithful  singing  robin  returns  to  the  same  spot, 
summer  after  summer,  although  she  may  have  a 
whole  zone  from  which  to  choose  her  resting-place. 
Do  we  not  know  that  some  winged  creatures,  season 
after  season,  from  the  billowing  rice-fields  of  the 
South,  from  the  Amazon  gleaming  among  its  tropi¬ 
cal  forests,  or,  it  may  be,  from  tawny  Africa,  come 
back  to  the  remembered  humble  porches  of  certain 
Northern  cottages  ?  and  do  we  not  understand  very 
well  that  all  this  is  Nature,  a  proclamation  of  the 
importance  of  the  home,  even  for  those  poor,  perch¬ 
ing  wanderers  that  a  few  years  ago  were  not,  and  a 
few  years  hence  shall  be  remembered  no  more  for¬ 
ever  ? 

The  lion  has  a  single  mate  in  his  lair,  and  a  fatal 
ferocity  if  it  be  invaded.  The  love  of  children  is 
but  a  part  of  the  love  of  home.  The  unrelenting 
tigress,  when  her  whelps  are  injured,  has  a  tenfold 
greater  ferocity  than  at  other  times.  The  mother- 
bird  broods  its  young  with  a  tenderness  which 
Almighty  God  has  used  as  a  symbol  of  his  own 
kindness  toward  the  human  race.  [Applause.] 

For  the  cradle  of  the  human  species,  however,  we 
are  told  that  Nature  provides  no  safeguard.  Science, 
we  are  assured,  protects  the  nests  and  lairs  of  brutes, 
but  not  the  sanctity  of  the  homes  of  men ! 

Assembled  in  Pliny’s  villa,  we  go  to  the  lattice- 
work  of  the  windows,  and  the  crevices  of  the  doors ; 
we  ask  Panthea  and  Phocion’s  wife  and  the  rest 
of  our  jury  to  go  with  us ;  and  we  look  upon  this 
motley  assembly  of  lepers,  some  of  whom  have  in- 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE. 


T3 


terrupted  us  by  serpentine  suggestions  that  would 
undermine  the  home.  Pliny  says,  “In  Pome  we  had 
no  case  of  parricide  for  six  hundred  years  after  the 
city  was  founded.  We  had  no  name  for  the  crime. 
Our  Cicero  remarks  that  when  Solon  was  asked  why 

1/ 

he  had  not  instituted  penalties  for  parricide  in  his 
famous  code  for  Athens,  he  replied,  4  that  to  give  a 
name  to  an  unknown  crime  is  to  tempt  men  to  it, 
rather  than  to  prevent  it !  ’  Pliny  is  proud  of  early 
Poman  history.  “We  were  barbarous,  you  say,”  — 
he  is  talking  to  Hampden,  —  “  and  yet  six  hundred 
years  passed  before  any  son  of  the  city  of  Pome 
imbrued  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  his  father.  When 
that  crime  was  first  committed,  what  did  we  do  ?  We 
passed  a  law  that  every  one  guilty  of  parricide  should 
be  flayed  with  a  whip,  then  sewn  up  in  a  sack  with  a 
dog,  a  cock,  a  viper,  and  an  ape,  and  cast  headlong 
into  the  sea.”  Pliny  looks  askance  upon  this  leprous 
crowd  outside  his  villa,  who  would  whisper  sugges¬ 
tions  into  the  ears  of  Panthea  and  Phocion’s  wife. 
“  A  dog,  a  cock,  a  viper,  and  an  ape !  -  The  race  is 
not  dead  yet,”  Pliny  exclaims.  [Applause.] 

The  revolt  of  this  pagan’s  heart  against  parricide 
is  not  the  result  of  modern  culture.  “  Why,”  con¬ 
tinues  Pliny,  “look  across  the  Adriatic,  look  across 
the  iEgean,  carry  your  thoughts  far  on  to  that  China 
of  which  you  have  learned  too  little  in  modern 
days.”  I  am  presuming  Pliny  to  speak  at  the  pres¬ 
ent  moment,  and  to  be  possessed  of  a  knowledge 
of  history  up  to  this  time.  44  There  is  an  empire 
pagan  yet.  It  is  founded  on  reverence  for  parents. 


74 


MAEEIAGE. 


Its  history  lies  outside  the  range  of  Christian  influ¬ 
ences.  What  do  the  people  do  yonder  when  a  son 
murders  his  father?  The  mandarins  of  the  village 
in  which  the  offence  is  committed  are  put  out  of 
office,  and  the  neighbors  suffer  severe  reprimand. 
The  son  is  put  to  death ;  his  bones  are  chopped  in 
pieces  by  your  pagan  Chinese ;  they  are  burned ;  the 
house  in  which  he  lived  is  razed  to  the  ground,  and 
the  place  where  it  stood  is  sown  with  salt.”  Pliny 
goes  to  the  window  again,  and  looks  out  on  this  long- 
living  breed  of  apes  and  vipers.  “  What  have  you 
done  to  your  fathers  ?  ”  And  the  reply  is,  leering 
frivolity  filling  the  countenances  of  the  crowd,  “We 
do  not  know  who  they  are.”  [Applause.] 

Do  you  want  a  portrait  of  Panthea  when  she  hears 
that  reply?  A  portrait  of  Cornelia?  a  portrait  of 
PliocioiTs  wife  ?  a  portrait  of  Hampden  ?  a  portrait 
of  the  French  prisoner?  We  are  here  to  ascertain 
what  great  Nature  teaches,  and  these  faces  answer 
us. 

Go  again  to  the  window.  “  What  about  the  home? 
Does  any  one  in  this  crowd  possess  a  home  ?  ”  Pliny 
asks.  “  In  this  crowd  which  is  making  suggestions 
against  marriage,  is  there  one  who  has  a  home?” 
u  The  word  is  not  in  our  language,”  is  the  reply. 
There  is  one  modern,  cultivated  language  that  has 
not  the  word.  And  yet  remember  that  Pere  Hya- 
cinthe  stood  in  Notre  Dame  in  Paris  the  other  day, 
putting  to  shame  the  dissolute  life  of  that  capital, 
which  is  the  playground  of  all  Europe,  and  exhibits 
far  more  than  the  vice  of  the  French.  To  put  that 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  75 


life  to  shame,  he  held  up,  what  do  you  suppose? 
Rome?  No.  China?  No.  He  held  up  the  brutes. 
He  held  up  Nature  building  homes  for  the  irra¬ 
tional  animals.  (Hyacinths,  The  Family  and  the 
Church ,  p.  265.)  Whoever,  in  the  spirit  of  the  sci¬ 
entific  method,  will  study  how  development  has  run 
on  through  the  different  tribes  of  sentient  creatures 
up  to  man,  will  see  great  Nature  preparing  afar  off 
the  hearthstone,  and  behold  the  smiting  of  God’s 
hands  together  to  light  up  the  spark  of  the  family 
fire.  [Applause.] 

We  are  in  presence  of  a  crowd  fitly  symbolized  by 
the  animals  cast  into  the  sea  with  the  Roman  parri¬ 
cide.  We  empanel  our  jury  again,  and  with  all 
solemnity  proceed  to  ascertain  what  they,  as  pagan 
judges,  think  of  these  suggestions.  Again  the  crowd 
whispers  under  the  crevices  of  the  windows,  “  Men 
can  love  twice  or  three  times :  women  can  love  but 
once.”  You  say  that  this  is  too  wild  a  statement  to 
be  found  among  the  inculcations  even  of  the  most 
erratic  teachers.  There  are  on  this  platform  books 
which  assert  literally  that  woman  differs  from  man 
so  far  as  to  make  it  safe  to  affirm  that  man  is  born  for 
polygamy,  although  woman  for  monogamy.  “  Quite 
a  discord  in  the  works  of  Nature,”  Pliny  says,  “if 
this  be  true !  I  have  heard  from  Greek  and  Roman 
philosophers,”  he  remarks,  “that  Nature  builds  no 
half-joints,  and  that  when  there  is  a  left  hand  there 
is  a  right  hand.”  —  “I  know,”  Cornelia  says,  and 
Panthea  and  Phocion’s  wife  assent,  “that  men  and 
women  are  born  two  and  two,  and  fall  in  love  two 


76 


MARRIAGE. 


and  two ;  and  now  how  are  you  to  make  them  consti¬ 
tute  a  society  made  up  of  one  and  twenty?  Utterly 
hopeless  discord  exists  in  every  unscientific  plan. 
Surely  if  communities  are*made  up  in  this  style,  and 
the  race  is  born  under  the  law  of  co-equal  heredity, 
somebody  must  be  without  a  home,  somebody  must 
be  left  unprovided  for  by  great  Nature,  somebody 
must  have  awakened  in-  him  a  love  of  home,  and 
have  no  means  of  finding  where  to  lay  his  head. 
Somebody  must  be  mocked  by  the  Supreme  Powers, 
if  they  allow  the  members  of  the  race  to  be  born 
two  and  two,  and  then  associate  them  one  and 
twenty.”  “We  suspect,  in  the  name  of  arithmetic,” 
this  jury  says,  “  a  philosophy  which  destroys  the 
opportunities  of  that  part  of  the  race  which  polygamy 
would  not  provide  with  associates.” 

I  hold  in  my  hand  a  book  which  I  shall  not 
advertise  by  naming.  It  is  a  Boston  anonymous 
work.  It  was  written  by  an  old  East  India  clerk, 
himself  a  bachelor;  and,  although  I  am  not  sup¬ 
posing  that  the  man  led  an  immoral  life,  he  certainly 
must  have  been  strangely  warped  by  the  experiences 
he  met  in  the  various  seaports  of  the  world,  or 
he  could  not  have  written  this:  yA  woman’s  heart 
is  so  constituted  that  it  is  impossible  for  her  to 
cherish  a  sincere  love  for  niore  than  one  husband  at 
the  same  time.  It  is  even  difficult  for  her  to  believe 
that  a  man  can  cherish  a  sincere  and  honest  love  for 
more  than  one  woman  at  the  same  time.  It  is  difficult 
for  her  to  believe  it,  for  she  cannot  comprehend  it. 
Her  own  instincts  revolt  against  the  thought  of  a  plu- 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  77 


rality  of  husbands ;  and,  judging  his  feeling  by  her 
own,  she  does  not  see  how  a  man  can  want,  or  at  least 
truly  love,  a  plurality  of  wives.”  But  at  this  point 
there  is  a  constitutional  difference  of  sex  !  “  A  man 

never  can  know  the  infinite  tenderness  and  the  infi¬ 
nite  patience  of  a  mother’s  love,  except  imperfectly. 
His  experience  does  not  teach  him.  His  paternal 
love  does  not  resemble  it.  So  a  woman  can  never 
know  the  sincerity  of  a  man’s  conjugal  love  for  a 
plurality  of  wives.” 

And  on  the  basis  of  that  accursed  shallowness 
there  is  erected  here  in  the  desert  ranges  of  discus¬ 
sion  a  dust-pillar  of  leprosy,  to  be  the  support  of  a 
new  moral  order  in  the  world !  Who  wants  any 
thing  more  than  a  single  whiff  of  the  honest  indig¬ 
nation  of  old  Rome,  or  even  of  China,  to  pulverize 
that  fallacy  ?  for  it  is  only  an  air-hung,  eddying  rope 
of  sand.  [Applause.]  There  must  be  scorched 
lands  somewhere  to  produce  dust,  for  this  pillar  of 
dust  seems  to  have  been  blown  into  form  twice  in 
Boston.  The  book  claims  to  be  in  a  second  edition. 
Is  there  any  Sahara  here?  I  should  like  to  know 
where  dust  enough  was  found  to  make  a  pillar  of 
that  sort,  a  kind  of  dancing,  insane,  whirling  der¬ 
vish.  No  more  science  in  it  than  in  the  followers  of 
the  old  Saturnalia,  or  than  in  the  most  erratic  and 
loathsome  of  the  modern  part  of  this  crowd  outside 
Pliny’s  villa,  and  which  he  will  not  admit  to  the  out¬ 
most  edges  of  his  own  hearthstone  ! 

Philosophy  ?  Why,  this  man  goes  on  to  say  that 
the  true  relations  of  love  are  symbolized  by  the  sun 


78 


MARRIAGE. 


and  the  planets :  “  It  would  be  as  impossible  and  as 
unnatural  for  a  pure-minded,  virtuous  woman  to 
have  more  than  one  husband,  as  for  the  earth  to 
have  more  than  one  sun ;  but  it  is  not  unnatural 
nor  impossible  for  a  pure  and  noble-minded  man  to 
cherish  the  most  devout  love  for  several  wives  at  the 
same  time.  It  is  as  natural  for  him  as  it  is  for  the 
sun  to  have  several  planets  at  the  same  time,  each 
one  dependent  on  him,  and  each  one  harmonious  on 
his  own  sphere.”  I  beseech  you  to  be  reverent,  for 
this  is  Boston.  [Applause.]  “  To  each  planet  the 
sun  yields  all  the  light  and  heat  which  she  is  capable 
of  receiving,  and  which  she  would  be  capable  of  re¬ 
ceiving  were  she  the  only  planet  in  the  sky.  Each 
planet  attracts  the  sun  to  the  utmost  of  her  weight, 
and  the  exhaustion  of  her  power;  and  the  sun  re¬ 
turns  her  attraction  to  an  exactly  equal  degree,  and 

• 

no  more.  Man  is  the  sun,  they  are  the  planets.  He 
is  strong,  they  are  weak.  Let  us  not  find  fault  with 
the  ordinances  of  God,  or  attempt  to  resist  his  will.” 
The  black  angels  laugh  at  the  sanctimonious  oleagi¬ 
nousness  of  small  philosophy  put  forward  to  defend 
polygamy. 

[After  this  sentence,  Mr.  Cook  with  a  gesture  of 
abhorrence  threw  the  book  from  which  he  had  been 
reading  into  a  chair  near  which  A.  Bronson  Alcott 
happened  to  be  sitting.  The  venerable  Concord 
philosopher,  in  a  spirit  of  righteous  indignation,  and 
with  a  look  of  intense  disgust,  reached  forward  his 
golden-headed  cane,  and  thrust  the  volume  oft  the 
chair  on  to  the  floor.  Mr.  Cook,  noticing  the  sig- 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  79 


nificant  movement,  which  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  whole  audience,  and  drew  forth  loud  applause, 
turned  to  him,  and  said]  Underfoot  is  the  proper  place 
for  that  volume  to  be  put  by  a  man  who  has  been 
the  author  of  the  life  and  training  of  “  Little 
Women,”  known  throughout  the  world  in  our  age 
[applause],  and  whose  example,  God  grant,  may  lift 
us  here  in  New  England  to  heights  from  which  a 
breeze  of  indignation  may  smite  these  gaunt,  fiend¬ 
ish  sand-pillars,  and  cause  them  to  bury  each  other, 
and  not  us,  in  destruction  !  [Applause.] 

Are  there  any  scandal  trials  by  jury  with  uncer¬ 
tain  results?  Are  there  any  newspapers  whose  ad¬ 
vocacy,  or  at  least  whose  silence,  can  be  bought  by 
questionable  characters?  You  will  find  excuses  for 
social  infamy  made  here  and  there,  by  whom  ?  Why, 
by  the  class  of  men  and  women  I  call  Bohemian  jour¬ 
nalists.  I  am  not  assailing  the  first,  second,  or  third 
class  of  respectable  newspaper-editors.  These  all 
are  among  the  prophets  of  modern  times.  Your 
foremost  newspaper-writer  needs  to  possess  encyclo¬ 
pedic  knowledge ;  he  must  be  abreast  of  the  century 
in  the  outlines  of  every  department  of  thought.  But 
here  is  your  Bohemian,  fifth-rate  editor,  in  some 
inky,  littered,  verminous  attic ;  and  he  defends,  slyly, 
loose  ideas  on  the  marriage  relations.  We  let  this 
style  of  insinuated,  cowardly,  anonymous  attack 
drift  through  society.  We  make  lax  divorce-laws. 
By  and  by  there  comes  some  great  strain  on  the 
community,  and  there  is  need  of  the  service  of  the 
press  on  the  right  side.  You  can  buy  parts  of  it  for 
the  wrong  side. 


80 


MARRIAGE. 


Pliny  has  a  right  to  rise,  as  he  does  here  and 
now,  and  say,  “Boston,  Chicago,  New  York,  Brook¬ 
lyn,  Charleston,  New  Orleans,  Paris!  remember  that 
in  a  single  month  Rome  put  to  death  fifty  women 
for  poisoning  their  husbands.  They  were  in  the 
upper  ranks  of  society;  and  they  had  been  tempted, 
not  by  stern,  but  by  lax,  laws  of  divorce.”  [Ap¬ 
plause.]  We  have  that  same  cause  in  operation  in 
more  than  one  American  commonwealth. 

Pointing  to  the  experience  of  Rome,  Pliny  says, 
\  “Five  hundred  years  after  the  City  of  the  Seven 
Hills  was  founded,  we  had  a  divorce-case  that  ob- 
J  tained  a  place  in  our  records.  I  will  not  undertake 
to  assert  that  there  were  no  divorces  for  the  first 
five  hundred  years  of  the  life  of  Rome ;  but  certain 
it  is  that  there  is  no  authentic  recorded  divorce  for 
the  first  five  hundred  years.”  (See  Woolsey,  Di¬ 
vorce,  chap,  i.) 

“I  know,”  Pliny  continues,  “how  Rome  grew  cor¬ 
rupt  ;  and  how,  at*  last,  the  better  emperors  under¬ 
took  to  roll  back  the  tide  of  license  by  increasing  the 
naturalness  of  the  divorce-laws ;  that  is,  by  insisting 
that  those  entering  upon  marriage  should  know  what 
they  are  about,  and  not  have  power  to  break  up,  by 
a  whim,  arrangements  on  which  the  happiness  of 
children  depend,  and  on  which  the  peace  of  society 
at  last  rests.  There  may  be  divorce  for  sufficient 
cause ;  but  the  city  of  Rome,  in  its  first  hundred 
years,  shames  the  present  record  of  any  American 
commonwealth  of  equal  population.” 

We  go  to  the  window,  and  we  find  this  crowd  of 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  81 


serpentine  whisperers  consulting  together  as  to  an¬ 
other  plea.  I  will  not  pick  up  that  book ;  but  here 
is  another,  which,  pardon  me,  I  do  not  mean  to  name 
by  its  title.  Ellen  Sturge  sends  a  communication  to 
the  Woman’s  Advocate  of  Dayton,  O.,  in  which  she 
proposes  the  following  social  platform  :  “  First,  let 
the  marriage-compact  be  limited  to  from  one  to 
three  years  at  the  option  of  the  contracting  parties.” 

I  must  stand  at  a  distance  from  my  jury,  or  I  cannot 
read  this  with  peace !  They  are  pagan  men  and 
women.  This  is  from  Ohio.  “  Secondly,  discard  the 
erroneous  idea  that  the  contract  is  divine.  Thirdly,  2 
let  love  alone.”  Yes,  a  most  important  provision,  for 
this  crowd  outside.  Pliny,  and  Phocion’s  wife,  and 
Panthea  and  Cornelia,  and  the  Pompeiian  daughter, 
gaze  into  their  face§  again.  “  Let  love  alone  !  The 
dog,  the  viper,  and  the  ape  have  spoken  frankly  at 
last.”  But  they  must  speak  fashionably,  and  so  we 
find  this  whisper  following,  which  deceives  no  Pan¬ 
thea,  and  no  Pliny:  “  Love,”  says  Ellen  Sturge,  “is 
the  sensitive,  spontaneous  outgrowth  of  the  heart, 
subject  to  the  control  and  treatment  of  circum¬ 
stances,  rather  than  formal  promises.  It  is  too  ten¬ 
der,  too  sacred,  for  the  public  gaze.”  Yes,  it  is;  but 
whoever  knows  what  it  is,  will  understand  what 
preparation  for  marriage  should  be.  When  it  is 
proclaimed  that  a  social  platform  must  include  this 
proposition,  that  we  are  to  let  love  alone,  I  need  no 
other  proof  of  its  unnaturalness;  for  I  recognize 
no  marriage  as  natural  that  has  not  behind  it  an 
adequately  tested,  supreme  affection.  [Applause.] 


82 


MARRIAGE. 


There  will  be  in  every  contract  of  this  sort,  con¬ 
tinues  this  Ohio  teacher  of  philosophy,  a  provision 
by  which  the  children  shall  be  given  over  to  the 
care  of  the  State. 

I  am  not  amazed  as  I  wander  through  the  litera¬ 
ture  on  this  topic,  to  find  it  all  a  morass,  without  a 
square  yard  of  firm  footing,  and  with  pestilence 
breathing  from  all  its  unskimmed,  slimy  pools.  I 
have  obliged  myself  to  examine  much  of  this  Ser- 
bonian  bog,  in  which  whoever  stands,  and  Struggles 
to  defend  himself,  sinks  the  deeper  with  every  effort. 
I  have  cited  to  you  what  I  suppose  to  be  specimens  of 
the  very  best  there  is  on  this  theme.  Owen  lies  there, 
and  I  might  cite  him.  I  name  him  because  every¬ 
body  knows  him.  If  you  will  take  the  improvements 
on  his  system  which  experience-  has  made,  the  out¬ 
come  of  them  will  be  at  last  what  occurred  here  in 
Boston,  not  long  ago.  A  brazen  woman  stood  up, 
calling  herself  the  wife  of  one  man,  and  proclaiming 
her  perfect  freedom  to  be  whatever  she  pleased,  and 
doing  so  with  leprous  language  and  with  profanity 
before  a  mixed  audience.  I  can  go  down  to  a  cer¬ 
tain  hall  here  in  Boston,  and  on  a  few  occasions  find 
exercises  going  on  with  which  Sodom  would  have 
had  deep  sympathy.  [Applause.]  We  find  these 
people  amusing,  only  because  we  do  not  pity  them 
enough.  They  suppose  that  they  are  uttering  a 
great  secret  public  sentiment.  They  do  not  com¬ 
prehend  how  the  deeper  heart  of  the  community  is 
loathing  them.  Social  lepers  never  understand  how 
insufferably  odious  to  a  pagan,  to  say  nothing  of  a 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  83 


Christian,  jury,  is  their  defence  of  the  dog,  the  viper, 
and  the  ape. 

At  the  door  of  his  villa,  Pliny  comes  forward  with 
Panthea,  and  with  Phocion’s  wife,  and  stands,  for 
once,  in  full  presence  of  this  infamous  crowd.  As 
he  addresses  them,  they  depart  one  by  one,  slinking 
away  from  the  eyes  of  these  pagan  women,  and  from 
the  blazing  light  of  experience ;  for  that  is  the  au¬ 
thority  to  which  Pliny  appeals  at  last.  “Wreck,” 
Pliny  exclaims,  “  came  to  Pome  because  the  family 
was  undermined  in  our  empire.  Wreck  you  have 
seen  come  to  Islam  from  the  same  cause.  Wreck 
has  come  to  every  Sardanapalus.  Wreck  has  over¬ 
taken  every  communistic  society  first  or  last.  You 
want  experiment  here  ?  Have  you  not  had  enough 
of  it  through  eighteen  hundred  years,  wherever  your 
views  have  been  practised?  You  have  no  homes. 
You  dd  not  know  your  fathers.  Has  the  centre  of 
Asia  a  hearthstone  ?  Has  polygamous  Islam  a  hearth¬ 
stone  to  which  you  feel  attracted?  Large  experi¬ 
ence,  you  want  ?  What  has  Sardanapalus,  what  has 
Mormonism,  what  has  Islam,  done  for  the  ages  ?  ” 

Five  days  in  Constantinople  I  sought  in  vain  to 
find  among  the  polygamistic  population  one  fresh 
face  over  forty  years  of  age.  There  rides  the  em¬ 
peror  into  his  mosque,  from  his  seraglio  which  con¬ 
tains  two  thousand  people ;  and  at  forty  he  is  a 
graybeard,  and  flaccid.  The  next  day  he  slits  his 
veins  with  scissors,  and  goes  hence  by  suicide.  Un¬ 
doubtedly  the  Turkish  peasant  is  too  often  too  poor 
to  have  many  wives.  No  doubt  Mahomet  advised 


84 


MARRIAGE. 


monogamy,  although  he  practised  polygamy.  But 
there  are  special  polygamistic  clauses  in  the  Koran, 
and  what  is  their  effect?  I  sailed  up  the  Danube,  and 
looked  at  the  villages  that  are  Mohammedan,  and 
at  the  villages  that  are  Christian.  Here  is  a  Mo¬ 
hammedan  town,  in  which  there  are  no  homes  in 
the  strict  sense  ;  and  the  dogs  in  it  are  the  only 
scavengers.  The  first  object  that  salutes  the  eyes 
and  nostrils  in  a  Mohammedan  town  in  the  East  is 
usually  the  heap  of  refuse  at  the  city-gate ;  the  next 
thing,  a  crowd  of  dogs  over  which  you  stumble ;  and 
then  the  cobweb  tessellation  of  filthy  booths  and 
windows.  In  Hebron  I  have  been  on  the  edge  of 
being  mobbed  in  the  foul  streets  because  of  the  sus¬ 
picion  and  wildness  of  a  fouler  populace ;  while  in 
Bethlehem,  a  Christian  town,  I  saw  no  rubbish ; 
even  on  obscure  streets,  every  thing  was  neat.  You 
sail  up  the  Danube,  and,  as  the  minarets  fade  out  of 
sight,  the  filthy  villages  fade  out  also.  The  spires 
come  into  view,  and  with  them  the  usual  sights 
of  Christian  towns.  Although  poverty-stricken,  the 
villages  exhibit  a  certain  amount  of  enterprise  and 
neatness.  You  find  children  that  do  not  look  as  if 
they  had  been  unwashed  from  birth.  I  passed 
through  the  iron  gates  of  the  Danube,  in  a  steam¬ 
boat  ;  and  on  the  deck  were  an  English  lord,  a  Ger¬ 
man  professor,  and  an  American  politician.  As  we 
moved  from  the  land  of  the  minarets  into  the  land  of 
steeples,  I  said,  “We  are  leaving  the  domain  of  the 
Koran,  and  are  coming  into  that  of  the  old-fashioned 
book  called  the  Scriptures.”  —  “I  know  it,”  said  the 


THE  LEPER’S  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  85 

Massachusetts  politician.  “Not  more  than  half  the 
people  of  a  Christian  population  go  to  church,  but 
they  rule  the  other  half.  We  are  more  indebted  to 
the  Bible,  and  its  ideas  of  marriage,  than  to  all  Ro¬ 
man,  Greek,  or  English  law.  I  never  appreciated 
the  fact  Before.”  Said  the  German  student,  in  his 
earnestness,  mistaking  me,  “You  should  not  be  hu¬ 
morous  upon  a  theme  so  grave ;  for  I  have  been 
thinking  how,  through  all  modern  history,  the  Bib-  , 
lical  ideas  of  marriage  move  as  the.  sweet  waters  of 
Jordan  through  the  Dead  Sea.”  The  English  lord 
said,  “  I  know  what  Britain  has  inherited  from 
Rome.  I  know  what  came  to  us  out  of  Greece. 
But  if  we  are  to  express  our  opinions  as  to  the  dic¬ 
tates  of  experience  on  this  theme,  if  we  are  to  take 
science  and  history  for  our  guides,  as  we  contrast 
minarets  for  experience  on  one  side,  and  spires  for 
experience  on  the  other,  we  shall  fall  on  our  knees 
on  the  deck  of  this  vessel,  and  thank  God  that  we 
were  brought  up  in  homes  of  the  Biblical  species.” 
[Applause.] 


IV. 

MAEEIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FOURTH  LECTURE  IN  THE  BOSTON 
MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  MARCH  11. 


Marriage  is  a  matter  of  more  worth 
Than  to  be  dealt  with  by  attorneyship  : 

For  what  is  wedlock  forced  but  a  hell, 

An  age  of  discord  and  continual  strife  ? 
"Whereas  the  contrary  bringeth  bliss, 

And  is  a  pattern  of  celestial  peace. 

Shakspeare  :  Henry  VI.,  Part  I.,  Act  V. 


Happiness  passes  away,  leaving  hardly  the  slightest  trace,  indeed, 
can  scarcely  be  called  happiness,  since  nothing  lasting  is  gained, 
Unhappiness  also  passes  away  (and  that  is  a  great  comfort),  but 
leaves  deep  traces  behind  ;  and,  if  we  know  how  to  improve  them, 
of  a  most  wholesome  nature,  and  is  often  the  cause  of  the  highest 
happiness,  as  it  purifies  and  strengthens  the  character.  This  I  have  , 
often  observed  in  the  case  of  women  who  have  been  married  unhap¬ 
pily,  but  who  would  rather  sink  into  the  grave  than  abandon  the 
position  in  which  fate  has  placed  them.  —  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt  : 
Letters. 


IV. 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

• 

The  current  blazing  discussion  of  future  punish¬ 
ment  is  distinguished  by  no  new  evidence,  but  by 
new  disputants.  The  progress  of  democracy  and 
of  luxury  in  the  world  has  brought  to  the  front  in 
theology  a  communistic  and  an  aristocratic  party. 
The  former  is  the  patron  of  what  I  call  the  Bohe¬ 
mian  theology,  and  the  latter  of  the  Sofa  theology. 
My  Lord  Verisopht  naturally  believes  in  the  latter; 
and  Sir  John  Falstaff  and  Jack  Cade,  in  the  former. 
Unhappily,  neither  of  these  personages  is  a  scientific 
authority.  It  is  very  significant  that  both  Abdiel 
above  them,  and  Mephistopheles  below  them,  are  too 
wise  to  believe  in  either  the*  Bohemian  or  the  Sofa 
theology.  But  the  communistic  and  the  luxurious 
tendency  are  powerful  enough  to  have  their  own 
newspapers,  magazines,  books,  platforms,  and  even 
pulpits. 

The  Lord  Verisopht  prefers  Dr.  Majolica  for  a 
preacher.  Falstaff  and  Cade  usually  prefer  to  do 
their  own  preaching.  The  Bohemian  and  the  Sofa 

89 


90 


MARKIAGE. 


theology  agree  in  possessing  the  democratic  spirit  of 
uncontrolled  self-rule  and  individualism.  They  both 
regard  the  unwelcome  as  the  untrue.  The  belief  of 
the  communistic  party  in  liberty,  and  that  of  the 
luxurious  party  in  ease,  is  so  intense  that  the  scien¬ 
tific  method  is  to  neither  a  master,  but  only  a  servant. 
The  one  believes  in  deciding  the  most  intricate  con¬ 
troversies  by  count  of  heads  and  clack  of  tongues ; 
the  other,  by  the  languid  sneer  of  fashion.  These 
theological  parties  are  full  of  the  Zeit-Geist  or 
Spirit  of  the  Time,  and  not  of  the  Ewigkeit-Geist 
or  Spirit  of  Eternity.  But  now,  for  the  first  time 
in  history,  the  portions  of  society  which  they  repre¬ 
sent  are  beginning  to  obtain  the  ear  of  the  world  on 
the  most  complicated  questions  of  theology,  hereto¬ 
fore  left  to  the  decision  of  scholars.  This  is  the 
chief  characteristic  of  many  a  modern  debate.  Not 
a  little  discussion  in  our  times  is  a  trial  of  scholars 
by  newspapers  and  parlors,  rather  than  of  scholars 
by  scholars.  Neither  in  the  historical,  nor  in  the 
philosophical,  nor  in  the  exegetical  portions  of  this 
debate  concerning  future  punishment,  is  there  any 
new  evidence;  but  the  new  disputants  are  placing 
the  old  evidence  with  much  eagerness  in  a  new  pair 
of  scales.  Age  after  age  the  evidence  has  been 
weighed  in  the  rival  scales  of  jealous  competing 
scholars,  and  the  results  recorded  in  standard  opin¬ 
ions.  It  is  now  to  be  weighed  in  the  scales  of  the 
people.  Ultimately,  if  the  latter  instrument  is 
steadily  balanced,  the  evidence  will  be  found  to 
weigh  in  the  new  scales  precisely  what  it  did  in  the 


MAEEIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


91 


old.  Experiment  will  corroborate  experiment;  and 
the  more  we  have  of  it,  the  better.  All  just  scales 
use  the  true  weights  of  the  Ewigkeit-  Greist,  and  all 
such  scales  justify  each  other.  The  false  weights  of 
the  Zeit- Greist  are  the  only  things  to  be  dreaded. 

For  one,  I  have  made  up  my  mind  not  to  go  out 
of  this  life  trusting  my  chances  of  eternal  peace  to 
the  opportunity  of  repentance  after  death.  In  this 
assembly  we  profess  to  revere  the  scientific  method. 
Let  me  try  here  a  serious  experiment.  Nothing  tests 
a  doctrine  like  acting  it  out.  How  many  are  there 
in  this  hall  that  are  willing  to  trust  their  chances  of 
eternal  peace  to  the  possibility  of  repentance  after 
death?  Canon  Farrar  says  that  his  gospel  is  one  of 
eternal  hope ;  and  that,  although  he  cannot  preach 
the  certainty  of  Universalism,  he  must  yet  lift  up 
behind  the  darkness  in  the  background  of  our  views 
of  the  next  life  a  hope  that  every  winter  will  turn 
to  spring.  He  assures  us  that  there  is  opportunity 
of  repentance  after  death.  Will  any  one  rise  here, 
and  say  seriously  that  he  is  willing  to  act  on  that 
assurance?  It  is  safe  to  put  truth  into  practice. 
“  Thou  shalt  not  steal.”  I  am  willing  to  take  that 
as  a  guide  at  this  moment.  “  Thou  shalt  commit  no 
murder.”  I  am  ready  to  trust  my  whole  weight  upon 
that  plank  in  the  theological  platform.  But,  as  for 
myself,  I  have  personally  made  up  my  mind  that  I 
will  not,  if  I  have  my  senses,  go  hence  trusting 
to  a  chance  of  repentance  after  death.  [Applause.] 

Am  I  willing  to  advise  any  friend  to  trust  liis 
chance  of  eternal  peace  to  an  opportunity  of  repent- 


92 


MAKBIAGE. 


ance  after  death?  Not  I.  By  as  much  as  any  man 
or  woman  is  dear  to  me,  by  so  much  I  should  advise 
them  to  be  shy  of  going  hence  trusting  their  eternal 
future  and  its  peace  to  an  opportunity  of  repentance 
beyond  the  grave.  If  I  cannot  advise  John  and  Jane, 
William  and  Mary,  to  trust  to  repentance  after  death, 
I  have  no  right  to  advise  the  ages  to  do  so.  John 
and  Jane,  William  and  Mary,  are  the  ages. 

What,  then,  have  we  to  do  with  this  seductive 
clamor  as  to  repentance  after  death,  —  we  practical 
men,  who  believe  in  the  scientific  method,  and  would 
put  every  thing  to  the  test  of  absolute  experiment 
in  life?  If  we  cannot  depend  on  the  doctrine  our¬ 
selves,  if  we  are  not  willing  to  put  our  whole  weight 
upon  it,  if  we  recoil  with  terror  when  asked  to  put 
upon  it  the  weight  of  any  friend,  how  dare  we  stand 
up,  and  put  upon  it  the  weight  of  the  ages,  full  of 
passion  and  blindness,  heat  and  pruriency,  and  what 
these  forces  may  breed  ?  As  a  practical  matter,  the 
question  for  me  is  settled  by  a  simple  appeal  to 
individual  seriousness.  You  are  not  willing,  I  am 
not  willing,  to  take  the  leap  into  the  Unseen,  depend¬ 
ing  on  the  chance  of  repentance  after  death ;  and, 
if  we  are  not  willing  to  do  that  ourselves,  God  forbid 
we  should  teach  others  to  do  what  we  will  not  do ! 
(Applause.] 

Every  great  doctrine  should  be  discussed  under 
three  heads,  —  definition,  proof,  reply  to  objections. 
Here  and  now  I  attempt  only  definition.  The  first 
fault  I  find  with  the  current  loose  newspaper  discus¬ 
sion,  and  with  much  that  pretends  to  be  scholarly, 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


93 


is  that  it  gives  no  definitions.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
ascertain  where  a  man  stands  among  the  many  forms 
of  opinion  on  this  theme.  Canon  Farrar  makes 
these  only  four  in  number;  but  there  are  at  least 
nine. 

1.  The  Dantean  view.  This  is  often  confused 
with  the  Orthodox.  Dante’s  poetry,  his  imagery 
of  brimstone  and  fire,  is  not  infrequently  spoken 
of  as  if  it  were  to-day  the  official  utterance  of  the 
latest  scholarship.  The  Dantean  view,  strictly  so 
called,  is  repudiated  by  scholarly  orthodoxy.  Allow 
me  to  say,  however,  that  I  believe  in  the  existence 
of  a  spiritual  body,  and  that  I  know,  beyond  a  per- 
adventure,  that  in  this  life,  when  a  man  is  under  the 
terrors  of  conscience,  strange  thrills  of  pain  shoot 
through  him ;  he  is  bowed  down ;  there  are  many 
indications  that  the  finest  fibres  of  his  structure  are 
at  war  with  the  nature  of  things.  We  do  not  know 
but  that  in  another  state  of  existence  the  spiritual 
body  will  be  darkened  and  bowed  down,  and  shot 
through  with  pain  as  it  is  here.  I  cannot  be  sure 
that  any  one  is  authorized  to  assert  that  in  the  next 
life  there  may  not  be  pains  as  nearly  physical  as  the 
spiritual  body  is.  There  is  a  spiritual  body,  and 
here  and  now  it  lies  behind  the  finest  fibres  of  our 
flesh,  and  here  and  now  we  feel  some  of  the  pains 
and  blisses-of  which  the  spiritual  body  is  susceptible. 
I  do  not  adopt  the  Dantean  view  of  the  state  of  the 
lost  in  another  life ;  but  I  object  to  any  man  saying, 
who  believes  in  a  spiritual  body,  that  there  are  no 
conditions  adapted  to  that  body  to  reveal  God’s 


94 


MARKIAGE. 


displacency  there,  just  as  similar  conditions  surely 
reveal  the  displacency  of  conscience  here.  Let  no 
man  whistle  on  this  theme  until  he  is  out  of  Dante’s 
forest.  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
than  are  dreamed  of  in  the  pains  that  conscience 
gives  us  by  its  displacency,  and  the  blisses  it  imparts 
by  its  complacency.  When  the  cover  of  flesh  is 
dropped,  and  we  possess  in  fulness  all  the  powers 
which  now  exist  in  embryo  in  this  mysterious  organ¬ 
ism,  who  knows  but  that  somewhere  in  the  next  state 
of  existence  we  shall  understand  what  the  dim  but 
vast  prophecies  of  our  instinctive  gestures  in  con¬ 
trasted  moral  states  mean,  —  standing  erect,  and  hav¬ 
ing  in  our  faces  a  light  not  of  this  world,  or  bowing 
down,  feeling  chains  upon  our  limbs,  and  pains  shoot¬ 
ing  through  the  innermost*  fibres  ?  This  quarter  of 
the  sky  deserves  a  long  gaze.  We  are  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  made. 

2.  The  Romish  view.  This  does  not  teach  by  au¬ 
thority  that  the  pains  of  the  next  life  will  be  physi¬ 
cal,  but  yet  asserts  that  it  is  dangerous  to  deny  that 
they  will  be.  In  the  North- American  Review,  lately 
(March- April,  1878),  a  Romish  writer  defends  a 
theory  of  the  state  of  the  impenitent  almost  Dantean. 
Of  course  the  doctrine  of  the  Romish  purgatory  is 
not  upheld  by  Protestant  scholars. 

3.  The  Orthodox  view.  What  is  it?  I  know 
that  I  venture  much,  but  I  am  asking  no  one  here  to 
indorse  my  propositions :  I  claim  no  right  to  speak 
for  others.  When  I  set  aside  all  exegetical  consid¬ 
erations,  and  use  only  the  light  of  ethical  science,  my 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


95 


view  of  future  punishment  is  summed  up  in  these  six 
propositions :  —  . 

(1)  Argument  which  proves  that  sin  will  cease 
involves  principles  which  prove  that  it  would  never 
begin.  It  has  begun;  and  optimism  must  adjust 
itself  to  this  fact  of  experience. 

(2)  Judicial  blindness  occurs  under  the  operation 
of  the  two  natural  laws  that  repeated  sin  impairs  the 
judgment,  and  that  he  whose  judgment  is  impaired 
sins  repeatedly. 

(3)  The  self-propagating  power  of  sin  arises  from 
these  same  laws. 

(4)  The  effectiveness  of  new  light ,  in  another  state 
of  existence ,  to  cause  reform ,  cannot  be  scientifically  'pre¬ 
dicted  face  to  face  with  these  laws. 

(5)  Under  the  power  of  judicial  blindness,  and 
the  self-propagating  nature  of  sin,  a  man  may  fall 
into  permanent,  voluntary,  moral  remoteness  from 
God  and  its  consequences,  or  final  permanence  of 
evil  character. 

(6)  While  sin  continues,  its  punishment  will  con¬ 
tinue. 

Even  after  repentance,  sin  is  not  covered  from  the 
Divine  displacency  without  an  atonement,  conscious¬ 
ly  or  unconsciously  received. 

As  perfect  frankness  concerning  this  definition  is 
important,  allow  me  to  say  that  I  do  not  undertake, 
by  mere*  reason,  to  point  out  when  probation  will 
end.  That  is  a  question  which  must  be  answered 
from  the  Scriptures,  and  to  which,  as  I  think,  they 
give  a  definite  reply.  But  from  mere  reason  we  are 


96 


MARRIAGE. 


justified  in  affirming  that  character  tends  to  final  per¬ 
manence  ;  and  I  believe  that  sometimes  it  attains 
permanence  in  this  life.  I  do  not  know  but  that  we 
should  be  justified  by  reason  in  asserting  that  life 
gives  every  responsible  free  agent  a  tone  of  charac¬ 
ter,  such  that,  when  he  enters  the  next  state  of  exist¬ 
ence,  the  first  moment  will  be  one  both  of  his  judg¬ 
ment  by  the  moral  law  and  of  his  final  choice.  The 
judgment  will  be  in  the  choice,  and  the  choice  will 
be  in  the  judgment.  This  is  not  a  second  probation. 
To  call  it  such  is  misleading.  But  this  event  and  the 
individual  judgment  may  occur  in  one  and  the  same 
indivisible  instant.  As  a  projectile  shot  against  the 
curved  side  of  an  iron  ship  glances  to  the  right  hand 
or  the  left  at  the  instant  of  its  impact,  so  the  soul 
which  strikes  on  the  infinite  bosses  of  God’s  buckler 
will  shoot  to  the  right  or  left,  upward  or  downward, 
according  to  the  mould  it  has  taken  here  from  its 
predominant  choices.  [Applause.]  Here  is  the  boss 
of  the  buckler,  and  it  is  not  likely  to  change  its 
shape.  You  go  through  life,  loving  what  God  hates, 
and  hating  what  God  loves ;  you  form  here  a  tone  of 
character  in  dissonance  with  the  nature  of  things,  or 
with  what  ought  to  be :  you  strike  the  lower  side 
of  the  boss,  and  the  instant  of  impact  is  the  instant 
of  glancing  in  the  direction  for  which  your  free  choice 
has  prepared  you.  The  new  light  which  you  see,  you 
hate ;  your  character  is  one  of  dissimilarity  of  feeling 
with  God ;  and,  under  fixed  natural  law,  but  with  no 
loss  of  freedom,  you  fall  into  the  consequences  of  that 
dissimilarity. 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


97 


Certainty  as  to  the  state  of  individual  men  when 
they  depart  hence  is  very  different  from  certainty  as 
to  the  conditions  of  the  peace  of  the  soul.  Some 
men  go  hence  with  a  tone  of  character  harmonized 
with  God,  and  yet  it  may  be  that  they  have  many 
faults.  Possibly  they  are  like  this  Union  after  we 
fought  Gettysburg  and  Richmond,  — the  Union  saved, 
although  there  is  many  a  Ku-Klux  Klan  in  the  South¬ 
ern  States.  Conversion  may  have  occurred,  although 
sanctification  be  imperfect.  God  will  treat  with 
mercy  every  man  who  is  predominantly  loyal,  because 
he  ought  to  do  so.  But  every  man  who  has  not 
fought  Gettysburg  and  Richmond,  every  man  who  is 
predominantly  disloyal,  will  find  that  without  holi¬ 
ness  there  can  be  no  blessedness. 

As  evil  choices  progress,  there  is  more  light  some¬ 
times  thrown  around  men  in  this  world.  Do  they 
always  see  it  ?  How  do  we  know  that  more  light  in 
the  next  world  will  be  loved  or  even  seen  ? 

The  later  Universalism  has  given  up  what  was 
once  called  “the  death  and  glory  theory.”  No  schol¬ 
arly  Universalist  now,  as  I  suppose,  would  care  to  be 
responsible  for  the  old,  crude  form  of  assertion  inside 
the  ranks  of  Universalism,  implying  that  death  is  a 
bath,  washing  off  whatever  habits  we  have  of  evil, 
and  giving  us  at  once  harmony  with  the  Unseen 
Holy.  Within  a  few  weeks  a  distinguished  gather¬ 
ing  of  Universalists  in  this  city  has  issued  a  series  of 
propositions  expressing  the  points  in  which  they 
agree,  and  distinctly  repudiating  that  theory. '  This 
event  marks  an  important  improvement  upon  the 


98 


MARRIAGE. 


first  form  in  which  Universalism  was  taught  in  New 
England.  [Applause.] 

4.  The  Second  Probationist  view.  This  does  not 
necessarily  teach  that  all  men  will  be  saved,  but  that 
those  who  die  impenitent  will  have  a  second  chance, 
and  that  those  who  do  not  improve  will  fall  into 
eternal  sin,  and  go  into  eternal  punishment. 

5.  The  Annihilationist  view.  This  affirms  that 
the  incorrigibly  wicked  will  sooner  or  later  cease  to 
exist. 

6.  The  Universalist  view. 

7.  The  Restorationist  view.  Now  that  the  doc¬ 
trine  I  have  just  referred  to  has  been  repudiated, 
there  is  very  little  difference  between  Universalism 
and  Restorationism.  The  Universalist  is  a  Restora¬ 
tionist  of  perhaps  a  more  emphatic  sort  than  the  man 
who  previously  was  called  a  Restorationist,  but  not  a 
Universalist. 

8.  The  Agnostic ’view.  Those  who  hold  this  say 
that  there  is  a  background  of  mystery,  and  that  the 
Bible  reveals  nothing  on  this  theme. 

9.  The  Optimistic  view.  This  is  Canon  Farrar’s 
position,  and  it  affirms  neither  the  Universalist  nor 
the  Restorationist  nor  the  Agnostic  propositions,  but 
simply  an  eternal  hope. 

I  might  say  that  in  the  last  place  we  have  a  ma¬ 
terialistic  view  which  sometimes  calls  itself  Christian, 
attempting  to  twist  out  of  the  Scriptures  the  idea 
that  there  is  no  immortality  for  any  soul.  We  have 
erratics,  unscholar ly,  foolish  persons,  who  find  no 
teaching  of  immortality  in  the  Old  Testament,  or  even 


MAKBIAGE  WITHOUT  LOYE. 


99 


in  the  New.  Indeed,  there  is  no  use  in  carrying  for¬ 
ward  a  debate  with  men  so  twisted  by  native  consti¬ 
tution  that  they  can  twist  the  Bible  into  the  negation 
of  one  of  the  plainest  of  its  teachings,  certainly  in  the 
New  Testament,  that  there  is  immortality  for  both 
the  evil  and  the  good. 

The  worth  of  an  opinion  in  the  world  may  be  esti¬ 
mated  by  the  number  who  hold  it,  and  by  its  practi¬ 
cal  effect  in  making  men  good.  I  am  not  prepared 
to  affirm  that  the  agnostic  doctrine  is  powerful  in 
making  men  virtuous,  nor  that  the  optimistic  is,  nor 
that  the  second  probationist  is.  Try  the  experiment 
of  putting  down  opposite  each  one  of  these  nine 
views  a  figure  representing  the  prevalence  of  the 
opinion.  Eighty  out  of  a  hundred,  of  the  professing 
Christians  of  the  world,  hold  the  Orthodox  view. 
Some  very  important  excrescences  on  the  Orthodox 
position  are  included  in  the  Romish  view.  But 
throwing  out  the  excrescences,  and  putting  Romish 
and  Orthodox  together,  certainly  eighty  per  cent  of 
those  who  profess  Christianity  hold  that  there  is 
endlessness  in  future  punishment.  For  one,  I  be¬ 
lieve  that  this  has  been  an  effective  doctrine,  on  the 
whole,  in  making  people  virtuous.  Put  eight  for  the 
figure  representing  the  prevalence  of  this  Orthodox 
view,  and  eight  as  the  figure  representing  its  power 
to  do  good,  and  multiply  the  two  together,  and  you 
have  the  figure  that  should  represent  the  weight  of 
that  view  —  say,  sixty-four.  Take  your  second  pro¬ 
bationist,  take  your  optimistic,  take  any  other  of  the 
nine  views*  and  estimate  their  weight  in  the  same 


100 


MARRIAGE. 


7 

way  by  the  product  of  two  factors  representing 
prevalence  and  usefulness.  How  do  they  work? 
Wendell  Phillips  said  in  my  hearing  the  other  day, 
before  the  Free  Religious  Association,  “  I  am  proud 
to  be  your  lecturer,  but  your  doctrine  will  not  work. 
Tested  by  history,  tested  by  philosophy,  tested  by 
human  nature,  you  will  find  that  it  will  not  work.” 
That  was  his  phrase,  repeated  four  times.  Facts 
oblige  us  to  say,  concerning  these  other  forms  of  the 
doctrine  of  future  punishment,  that  they  do  not 
work.  It  is  historically  certain  that  they  have  not 
been  effective  in  obtaining  supporters  among  those 
who  profess  to  be  serious  men  and  women,  and  to 
take  the  Scriptures  for  their  guide.  They  have  ob¬ 
tained  many  followers  outside  those  who  reverence 
the  Scriptures ;  they  have  obtained  many  inside  the 
range  of  the  Bohemian  and  the  Sofa  theology.  But 
I  am  now  speaking  of  earnest,  serious  men, who  are 
about  to  go  hence,  and  to  try  the  personal  experi¬ 
ment  of  putting  themselves  on  this  or  that  platform. 
Where  are  the  figures  that  represent  the  true  weights 
of  those  doctrines,  as  estimated  by  their  prevalence 
among  serious  men,  and  their  effectiveness  in  mak¬ 
ing  bad  men  good?  With  the  highest  figures  my 
conscience  will  justify,  I  cannot  raise  any  one  of 
those  doctrines  to  a  position  above  ten  as  compared 
with  sixty-four.  I  do  not  find  that  their  prevalence 
in  the  world,  and  their  power  to  do  good,  fits  them 
to  be  weighed  against  the  more  serious  view;  and  so, 
according  merely  to  the  rule  of  count  of  heads  and 
clack  of  tongues,  there  is  really  something  to  be  said 
for  the  Orthodox  position. 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


101 


If  you  were  to  send  out  your  ballot-box,  and  take 
up  a  vote,  I  believe  that  you  would  find  the  opinion 
of  the  church  far  less  changed  as  to  substance  than 
many  of  you  suppose.  One  of  the  religious  news¬ 
papers  of  this  city  has  shown  that  more  than  seventy 
per  cent  of  the  men  in  the  evangelical  ministry  of 
my  denomination  teach  the  orthodox  view  in  sub¬ 
stantial  unity.  The  evangelical  creeds  of  the  world 
are  practically  a  unit  on  the  propositions  which  I 
have  given  here  as  deductions  from  established  ethi¬ 
cal  science.  I  do  not  know  an  evangelical  denomina¬ 
tion  on  the  globe  that  will  deny  either  of  these  six 
assertions.  Give  me  these  six  propositions,  which 
have  thus  far  seen  battle  but  not  defeat,  and  I  am 
willing  to  face,  any  theology  which  stands  simply  on 
the  spirit  of  the  time,,  and  not  on  the  spirit  of  eter¬ 
nity.  [Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

You  are  requested  to  appear  to-day  in  Pliny’s  villa, 
with  the  statutes  of  Connecticut  and  Indiana  under 
your  arms.  It  will  be  difficult  for  you  to  obtain  ad¬ 
mission,  now  that  the  host  of  the  unclean  have  been 
sent  away  behind  the  Apennines,  unless  you  prove 
that  you  are  not  friends  of  the  loose  divorce-laws 
recorded  in  these  statutes  which  you  bring  from 
America.  Cornelia,  Pantliea,  Pliny,  Phocion’s  wife, 
as  you  open  the  pages  of  Connecticut  and  Indiana 
legislation,  stand  aghast  at  the  provisions  which  make 
it  more  easy  to  protect  your  property  in  a  horse,  or 
an  ox,  or  in  sheep  and  swine,  than  to  protect  your 
rights  in  relation  to  wife  and  children. 


102 


MAERIAGE. 


Before  I  sit  down  I  shall  justify  this  strong  asser¬ 
tion  by  citations  from  statute-books  ;  and  }^et  I -would 
not  draw  near  to  this  infamy  of  a  part  of  Ameri¬ 
can  law  without  a  word  on  the  evils  of  marriage 
without  love,  and  a  fair  fronting  of  any  philosophi¬ 
cal  defence  that  can  be  attempted  for  such  legisla¬ 
tion.  These  evils  I  might  discuss,  but  everybody 
knows  their  terror.  The  topic  of  marriage  without 
love  discloses  to  the  view  of  thought  a  ghastly  host 
of  skeletons  in  cupboards.  I  should  like  to  have  the 
doors  closed  here  to-day,  and  all  the  unhappy  mar¬ 
riages,  of  which  you  have  ever  heard,  recorded  on 
scrolls,  and  the  writings  unrolled  upon  the  walls  of 
this  Temple.  [Loud  applause  from  a  single  individ¬ 
ual  in  the  body  of  the  hall.]  The  more  scrolls  you 
unroll,  the  more  shy  such  of  you  as  are  yet  unmar¬ 
ried  will  be  of  entering  into  any  marriage-contract 
without  a  supreme  affection.  Let  the  persons  who 
think  that  the  unrolling  of  all  the  secrets  of  unhappy 
marriages  would  dissuade  any  from  stern  Christian 
views  of  divorce  remember  that  a  red  line  runs 
through  every  record  of  a  natural  marriage,  and  a 
black  line  through  every  record  of  an  unnatural  one. 
The  red  line  is  a  supreme  affection ;  the  black  line  is 
its  absence.  Give  me  the  red  line  unbroken  from 
beginning  to  end  of  your  parchment,  and  in  spite  of 
all  infelicities  expressed  in  words  which  that  line  may 
enclose,  I  will  show  you  a  happy  marriage,  or,  at  least, 
one  that  can  be  endured.  But  give  me  the  black 
one,  and  I  care  not  what  you  write  inside  such  a 
border :  it  is  all  infernal,  and  the  scroll  ought  never 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


108 


to  have  had  the  first  word  written  on  it.  [Applause 
by  hand-clapping  from  the  person  in  the  audience 
above  referred  to.]  The  skeletons  in  cupboards 
sometimes  clap  their  hands.  [Applause.]  Let  us 
hear  them  all ;  and,  if  you  give  voice  to  their  tooth¬ 
less  jaws,  I  care  not ;  for  their  shrieks  here  can  be 
uttered  only  on  the  side  of  that  sound  doctrine  which 
teaches  that  marriage  is  scientifically  unnatural,  if  it 
exists  without  a  supreme  affection. 

Do  you  ask  whether  an  affection  of  the  supreme 
sort  changes ;  whether  it  has  a  quality  on  the  endur¬ 
ance  of  which,  after  it  is  adequately  tested,  you  can 
calculate ;  whether  there  is  any  way  of  keeping  per¬ 
manently  an  affection  that  is  really  fundamental  and 
overpowering ;  whether  all  the  poets  have  uttered 
lies  when  asserting  that  a  supreme  love  is  enduring, 
and  has  offices  in  the  world  to  come ;  whether 
woman’s  heart  and  man’s,  so  far  as  pure  and  lifted 
into  naturalness  by  purity,  are  all  organized  wrongly, 
when  their  instincts  assert  that  changelessness  be¬ 
longs  to  affection  adequately  tested  and  found  out 
to  be  supreme?  Panthea  and  Phocion’s’ wife,  Cor¬ 
nelia,  Pliny,  and  Hampden,  do  not  ask  these  juvenile 
questions. 

The  chief  remedies  for  marriage  without  love  are 
summed  up  in  the  provision  that  you  shall  not  marry 
a  love  that  can  be  lost.  If  no  one  hereafter  learns 
to  be  intemperate,  intemperance  will  be  cured ;  if  no 
man  will  marry  without  a  supreme  affection,  judicious 
marriage  will  prevent  the  evils  of  marriage  without 
love.  We  might  need  an  ex  post  facto  law  for  a  few 


104 


MARRIAGE. 


cases,  but  death  would  soon  arrange  these.  As  to  the 
scientific  future,  we  need  only  say  that  if  society 
will  adopt  the  rule  of  nature,  and  justify  no  marriage 
without  a  supreme  affection,  the  evils  of  marriage 
without  love  will  be  sufficiently  cured.  Those  who 
marry  without  the  consent  of  Nature  may  securely 
expect  trouble.  The  world  is  never  in  order  until 
it  is  conscientious. 

If  I  must  put  into  analytical  form  the  proposi¬ 
tions  which,  after  much  examination,  appear  to  me 
to  be  the  only  ones  that  represent  a  system  of 
straightforward  thought  as  to  the  theme,  I  will 
say,  — 

1.  The  evils  of  marriage  without  love  are  suscep¬ 
tible  of  cure  by  three  methods :  — 

(1)  Prevention  by  judicious  marriage  ; 

(2)  Endurance  by  conscientiousness; 

(3)  Termination  by  divorce. 

2.  The  nature  of  things  requires  that  there  should 
be  no  marriage  without  a  supreme  affection. 

3.  The  disregard  of  this  natural  law  by  marriages 
of  convenience  or  heedlessness  or  hypocrisy  does  not 
change  the  law. 


4.  In  such  marriages  the  nature  of  things  pro¬ 
duces  pain  proportioned  to  their  unnaturalness.  • 

5.  The  nafiire  of  things  is  on  the  side  of  those 
who  maijy^only  after  Providence  has  given  them  an 
adequately  tested  affection. 

G.  Love  which  is  susceptible  of  withdrawal  is  not 
lave. 

7.  Genuine  love  is  possible  only  to  the  conscien¬ 
tious  or  regenerate. 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


105 


8.  The  world  is  never  natural  until  it  is  good. 

9.  Providence  sends  to  most  persons  who  are  good 
the  double  gift  of  a  supreme  affection  and  a  corre¬ 
sponding  opportunity  of  marriage. 

10.  If  to  any  this  gift  is  not  sent,  they  are  not 
called  to  marriage. 

11.  The  care  of  children  may  make  a  loveless  mar¬ 
riage  endurable. 

12.  Divorce  must  not  violate  children’s  rights. 

18.  The  necessities  of  children  are  such  that  the 

only  grounds  of  divorce  justifiable  in  the  eyes  of 
science  are  adultery  and  malicious  desertion. 

I  read  these  propositions  slowly  one  by  one  in  the 
face  of  my  pagan  jury  in  Pliny’s  villa ;  and  I  find  no 
disgust,  but  only  approval,  in  their  countenances. 

When  I  open  the  Connecticut  statute-book,  how¬ 
ever,  and  put  before  them  the  articles  which  that 
State  up  to  1875  has  indorsed  since  1843,  the  disgust 
in  their  faces  becomes  overpowering  as  they  gaze 
upon  the  infamous  record. 

Lest  Massachusetts  should  feel  herself  elated  by 
the  comparison  of  her  divorce-laws  with  those  of 
Connecticut  and  Indiana,  allow  me  to  read  a  petition 
that  is  now  before  the  honorable  body  which  meets 
in  the  State  House  yonder,  and  which  is  to  be  de¬ 
bated  in  private  committee  in  Boston  within  a  very 
few  days.  I  ask  no  one’s  praise  for  giving  publicity 
to  this  petition,  which  comes  from  a  seaboard  county 
of  Massachusetts.  It  is  signed  by  a  Tyoman  who  calls 
herself  a  physician,  doctor  of  medicine.  It  bears  sev¬ 
eral  other  names,  presumably  those  of  females.  I 


106 


MARRIAGE. 


shall  of  course  honor  them  very  much  by  presenting 
their  ladyships  here  with  their  petition. 

“  To  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of 
Massachusetts  in  legislature  convened :  we  the  un¬ 
dersigned,  members  of  this  community,  respectfully 
petition  your  honorable  bodies  to  abolish  illegiti¬ 
macy,”  —  I  am  obliged  to  stand  at  a  distance  with 
their  ladyships,  lest  Cornelia  leave  her  seat  on  the 
jury,  lest  Phocion’s  wife  and  Panthea,  and  that 
Pompeiian  maiden  and  Pliny,  oblige  me  to  leave  his 
threshold  with  these  people  whom  I  would  represent. 
Indeed,  I  am  now  required  by  the  jury,  speaking  by 
Pliny,  who  rises  yonder,  to  put  their  ladyships  out 
of  doors.  [Applause.]  They  stay  there,  peeping 
through  the  crevices  of  the  doors  and  behind  the 
shutters,  while  I  am  permitted  to  read  what  they 
have  hissed  into  the  ear  of  Massachusetts,  —  “We 
respectfully  petition  for  the  abolition  of  illegitimacy 
from  our  midst ;  enabling  every  woman  who  stands 
in  the  connection  or  relationship  of  a  wife  in  any 
respect  toward  any  man  to  sustain  her  position  re¬ 
spectably;  by  acknowledging  publicly  such  relation, 
and  recording  her  name  as  a  married  woman,  en¬ 
dowed  with  all  the  rights  and  privileges  pertaining 
thereto.” 

The  proposition  is,  that  fallen  women  and  illegiti¬ 
mate  children,  if  they  exist  in  fact,  shall  not  be 
allowed  to  exist  in  name  or  in  law. 

“  In  this  uplifting  of  ourselves,”  the  petition  con¬ 
cludes,  “  we  ask  you  to  legally  sustain  us,  removing 
every  obstacle,  and  extending  every  protection.” 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE.  107 

% 

“  Yes,”  Pliny  says,  “if  you  will  obtain  the  consent 
of  the  Supreme  Powers ;  never  till  then.  Removing 
every  obstacle  to  fallen  women !  removing  every 
obstacle  to  illegitimate  children !  making  no  distinc¬ 
tion  between  honor  and  dishonor,  the  right  hand  and 
the  left !  ”  Pliny  calls  for  the  thunders  of  Vesuvius 
to  bury  under  their  ashes  a  proposition  that  would 
have  incurred  scorn  in  the  city  where  infamy  was 
sometimes  found  even  in  the  temples  of  the  gods ! 
[Applause.] 

Will  Massachusetts,  sufficiently  moved,  I  hope,  by 
.the  fact  that  petitions  of  that  sort  can  obtain  a  public 
place  on  her  records,  listen  while  I  cite  the  Connecti¬ 
cut  law  ?  In  late  years  the  ratio  of  divorces  to  mar¬ 
riages  in  Connecticut  is  twice  what  it  is  in  Vermont, 
nearly  fourfold  what  it  is  in  Massachusetts,  and  more 
than  double  what  it  is  in  Prussia.  On  the  aver¬ 
age,  one  hundred  and  eight  more  persons  are  there 
divorced  annuallv  than  in  Massachusetts,  a  State 
with  two  and  a  half  times  as  many  inhabitants.  In 
1866  more  than  half  as  many  were  divorced  in  Con¬ 
necticut  as  in  Ohio,  a  State  with  almost  five  times 
the  population.  These  facts  are  discussed  in  many  a 
document,  and  especially  by  the  revered  ex-President 
Woolsey  of  Yale  College.  ( Divorce ,  pp.  179-233.) 

*  But  his  book  was  published  some  years  ago,  and  my 
purpose  this  morning  is  to  bring  the  discussion  up  to 
dates.  I  have  here  an  elaborate  examination  of  the 
very  latest  statistics,  made  for  me  by  authority ;  and 
I  am  giving  you  here  a  lawyer’s  interpretation  of  the 
present  legislation  of  the  great  Commonwealth  lying 


108 


MARRIAGE. 


yonder  on  the  Sound.  Here  are  the  conditions  of 
divorce  which  have  remained  up  to  1875:  “Adul¬ 
tery  ;  fraudulent  contract ;  wilful  desertion  for  three 
years,  with  neglect  of  duty;  seven  years’  absence, 
not  heard  of;  habitual  intemperance ;  intolerable 
cruelty ;  sentence  to  imprisonment  for  life  ;  any  in¬ 
famous  crime  involving  a  violation  of  conjugal  duty, 
and  punishable  by  imprisonment  in  the  State  prison ; 
and,  lastly,”  —  this  is  the  famous  clause,  this  is  the 
ground  of  divorce  which  amazes  Panthea  and  Pho- 
cion’s  wife  and  Pliny,  —  “  any  such  misconduct  as  per¬ 
manently  destroys  the  happiness  of  the  petitioner ,  and , 
defeats  the  purpose  of  the  marriage  relation .” 

Notice  the  vagueness  of  that  law,  and  how  much 
it  leaves  to  the  discretion  of  the  courts. 

What  has  been  the  legal  practice  under  loose 
divorce-laws?  Why,  the  evidence,  ex  parte  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten,  has  been  inadequately  tested ;  for 
the  lawyer  on  the  side  of  the  opponent  to  the  peti¬ 
tioner  has  rarely  had  the  advice  of  his  client.  Di¬ 
vorce  suits  have  been  pushed  through  on  the  rush, 
between  the  morning  session  of  the  court  and  the 
time  for  dinner.  Over  and  over,  most  important 
cases  have  been  decided  on  wholly  ex  parte  evidence. 
In  the  law  I  have  cited,  a  nearly  unlimited  power 
over  the  most  sacred  relations  of  life  is  given  to  the 
discretion  of  the  court.  Operative  force  is  acquired 
by  the  higher  causes  of  divorce  through  the  lower. 
Very  often  the  higher  are  put  into  a  legal  complaint 
only  to  make  a  noise,  when  there  are  no  facts  behind 
them ;  and  finally  a  divorce  is  decreed  on  the  lower 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


109 


when  the  charges  on  the  higher  have  failed.  Presi¬ 
dent  Woolsey  says  (. Divorce ,  p.  223),  “Connecticut 
is  at  the  bottom  of  the  list.  The  ratio  of  divorces  to 
marriage  is  nearly  fourfold  that  in  Massachusetts, 
and  much  more  than  double  that  in  Prussia,”  which 
has  had  the  armies  of  Europe  storming  over  her  for 
the  last  century,  and  French  fashions  polluting  her 
ever  since  Rousseau’s  day. 

What  are  we  to  say,  when  before  our  pagan  jury 
we  can  bring  up  only  regulations  of  that  sort  to  show 
the  tendency  of  divorce-legislation  in  this  country  ? 
I  have  no  time  to  go  into  details  of  the  Indiana  legis¬ 
lation.  They  are  not  quite  as  bad  as  those  of  the 
Connecticut  law.  Are  we  to  affirm  that  the  Biblical 
ideals  can  no  longer  be  enforced  ?  Are  we  to  say 
that  they  are  not  scientific  ?  What  are  they  ?  Here 
is  the  next  to  the  most  important  question  to  be 
discussed  under  the  topic  of  marriage  without  love : 
For  what  reasons  may  marriage  be  ended?  I  suppose 
that  the  scriptural  doctrine  on  this  point  is  very  well 
settled.  One  cause  of  divorce  there  is  no  debate 
about.  We  all  know  that  a  certain  crime  can  make 
those  who  have  been  one  two,  and  that,  in  the  eyes 
of  Him  who  spake  as  never  man  spake,  there  is,  in 
that,  case,  justification  for  divorce.  Yes,  but  you  say 
Paul  was  ascetic,  he  differed  from  the  law  of  his 
Master;  but,  on  the  basis  of  Paul’s  writings,  it  is 
taught  that  malicious  desertion  is  another  ground  of 
divorce  justified  by  the  Scriptures.  I  know  that 
there  is  a  debate  on  this  point  ;•  but  it  must  be  af¬ 
firmed,  I  think,  that  the  two  grounds  of  adultery  and 


110 


MARRIAGE. 


malicious  desertion  are  recognized  as  a  sufficient 
occasion  for  divorce,  and  that  Christian  scholarship 
will  not  debate  with  legislation,  even  if  malicious 
desertion  be  interpreted  to  mean  ten  years’  desertion 
without  being  heard  from.  Of  course  there  would 
be  a  debate  with  legislation  if  any  trumpery  period 
of  absence  were  called  malicious  desertion.  There 
are  many  definitions  of  that  phrase ;  but  if  you  really 
prove  malicious  desertion,  you  prove  that  there  exists 
a  Christian  ground  for  divorce.  So  that,  on  the' 
basis  of  these  two  propositions,  there  might  be  a 
harmony  of  sentiment  between  Christian  scholarship 
and  secular  legislation.  Nevertheless  we  find  secu¬ 
lar  legislation  running  on  till  it  makes  divorce  easy, 
and  against  which  all  standard  writers  on  social  law 
have  warned  us  —  not  excepting  even  David  Hume. 
What  di  d  he  say  ? 

Hume  was  as  ascetic  in  relation  to  divorce-law  as 
Paul.  I  know  what  loose  opinions  Hume  had  of 
crime  outside  of  marriage.  You  must  not  suppose  I 
am  contradicting  what  I  cited  from  Hume  the  other 
day ;  but  Hume  knew  what  law  is,  and  yet  he  was 
without  Christian  prejudices  as  to  marriage.  Al¬ 
though  I  have  denounced  some  of  Hume’s  views  as 
infamous,  I  must  be  permitted,  to  show  you  that 
other  views  of  his  are  sound.  When  men  stand  up, 
and  call  Paul  ascetic,  when  Strauss  attacks  the  New 
Testament  for  ascetic  ideas  on  the  topic  of  divorce, 
I  would  like  to  call  Hume  to  the  lattice-work  here, 
and  let  him  look  to  the  faces  of  our  pagan  jury, 
while  I  read  his  opinion :  u  We  need  not,  there- 


MARRIAGE  WITHOUT  LOVE. 


Ill 


fore,  be  afraid  of  drawing  the  marriage-knot ,  which 
chiefly  subsists  by  friendship ,  the  closest  possible.  The 
amity  between  the  persons,  where  it  is  solid  and 
sincere,  will  rather  gain  by  it ;  and,  where  it  is  wa¬ 
vering  and  uncertain,  that  is  the  best  expedient  for 
fixing  it.  How  many  frivolous  quarrels  and  dis¬ 
gusts  are  there  which  people  of  common  prudence 
endeavor  to  forget  when  they  lie  under  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  passing  their  lives  together,  but  which  would 
Soon  be  inflamed  into  the  most  deadly  hatred  were 
they  pursued  to  the  utmost  under  the  prospect  of 
an  easy  separation !  W e  must  consider  that  noth¬ 
ing  is  more  dangerous  than  to  unite  two  persons  so 
closely  in  all  their  interests  and  concerns  as  man 
and  wife  without  rendering  the  union  entire  and 
total.  The  least  possibility  of  a  separate  interest 
must  be  the  source  of  endless  quarrels  and  suspi¬ 
cions.  The  wife ,  not  secure  of  her  establishment ,  will 
still  be  driving  some  separate  end  or  project;  and 
the  husband’s  selfishness ,  being  accompanied  with  more 
power ,  may  be  still  more  dangerous .”  (Hume’s  Phil¬ 
osophical  Works ,  vol.  iii.  pp.  208,  209.  American  edi¬ 
tion,  Boston,  1854.) 

Pliny  rises,  and  reads  proudly  the  definition  of 
marriage  as  given  by  Modestinus,  the  eminent  scholar 
of  Ulpian,  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century.  A 
similar  one  in  the  Institutes  has  passed  into  canonical 
law.  The  celebrated  words  which  Pliny  emphasizes 
contemplate  the  perpetuity  of  the  marriage  union  of 
one  man  and  one  woman,  as  essential  to  the  nature 
of  the  institution.  They  are:  “Nuptiae  sunt  con- 


112 


MARRIAGE. 


junctio  maris  et  foeminse  et  consortium  omnis  vitae, 
divini  et  humani  juris  communicatio.”  (Compare 
Institutes  of  Justinian ,  1-9,  §2.) 

Panthea,  Phocion’s  wife,  all  this  jury,  indorse 
Hume ;  and  when  the  petitioners  to  the  Massachusetts 
legislature,  when  the  Indiana  legislators,  when  the 
loose  sentiments  that  have  justified  these  lax  divorce- 
laws,  come  before  our  pagan  tribunal,  the  only  reply 
they  meet  is  a  prolonged  hiss  and  curse.  Experience 
writes  once  more  across  the  wall,  Mene ,  mene ,  tekel , 
upharsin ;  and  these  petitioners,  gazing  upon  the 
Hand  that  comes  forth  from  the  Unseen,  see  that 
they,  in  the  scales  of  the  scientific  method,  are 
weighed  in  the  balances,  and  found  wanting.  [Ap¬ 
plause.] 


V. 

OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTH  LECTURE  IN  THE 
BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED 
IN  TREMONT  TEMPLE,  MARCH  18. 


For  myself,  I  believe  that  permanent  union  of  the  sexes  should 
be  early  encouraged ;  nor  do  I  conceive  that  general  happiness  can 
ever  flourish  but  in  societies  where  it  is  the  custom  for  all  the  males 
to  marry  at  eighteen.  — Lord  Beaconsfield:  Contarini  Fleming. 


When  it  shall  please  God  to  bring  thee  to  man’s  estate,  use  great 
providence  and  circumspection  in  choosing  thy  wife.  For  from 
thence  will  spring  all  thy  future  good  or  evil;  and  it  is  an  action 
of  life  like  unto  a  stratagem  of  war,  wherein  a  man  can  err  but 
once.  —  Sir  Philip  Sidney. 


V. 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 

PEELUDE  ON  CUEEENT  EVENTS. 

When  I  rode  to  Tivoli  I  saw  cripples  walking  on 
all-fours  through  the  dust  of  Italy,  and  men  with 
unreportable  hereditary  diseases  publicly  clamoring 
for  alms.  The  beggars  go  free  in  Italy.  They  ask 
for  food  at  the  doors  of  convents.  You  see  the  lazar- 
house  on  crutches.  Skeletons  in  closets  walk  abroad 
under  that  southern  sun.  Society  here  shuts  up  its 
offensive  diseases  in  hospitals  and  asylums.  Closed 
doors  lessen  the  publicity,  but  not  the  real  terrible¬ 
ness,  of  the  exhibitions  of  human  wrecks  under  the 
stern  action  of  irreversible  natural  laws.  Bring  all 
these  wrecks  before  your  thoughts.  Shutting  your 
eyes  to  their  existence  will  not  cause  them  to  cease 
to  exist.  Infidelity,  with  gnashing  teeth,  may  pro¬ 
claim  that  it  hates  the  fact  that  human  wrecks  exist ; 
but  they  exist  nevertheless.  Rolling  up  the  long 
slopes  of  Tivoli,  I  happened  to  be  conversing  with 
several  gentlemen  on  the  inexplicableness  of  the 
laws  of  hereditary  descent.  These  cripples,  all  their 
lives,  suffer  for  no  crime  of  their  own.  Were  I  to 

115 


116 


MARRIAGE. 


s 

follow  my  sentiment,  I  should  affirm  that  God  is 
doing  at  least  a  small  evil  to  such  miserable  beings. 
You  say  they  may  be  rewarded  hereafter;  but  that 
will  not  change  the  record  of  their  los^  in  this  life. 
Without  any  fault  of  their  own,  they  have  suffered 
pain. 

If  God  does  that ,  and  if  our  mere  sentiment ,  looking 
on  it,  would  call  it  a  small  evil,  which  must  we  dis¬ 
trust,  God  or  this  sentiment?  I  suppose  that  the 
universe  is  larger  than  our  outlook  upon  it.  I  dare 
not  undertake  to  affirm  that  God  does  not  do  right 
every  time,  or  that  he  ever  does  a  little  evil.  It  is 
as  impossible  for  Infinite  Holiness  to  do  a  small  evil 
as  a  large  one.  But  I  find  what  is  called  liberal 
sentiment,  taken  as  a  guide,  misleading  me  as  to  the 
idiot  and  the  cripple,  and  the  man  who  is  born  with 
a  disease.  I  find  mere  sentiment  saying  that  no  uni¬ 
verse  ever  would  be  created  by  a  Being  of  infinite 
holiness  and  power,  and  evil  of  that  sort  allowed  to 
exist  in  it'.  But  that  state  of  things  does  exist.  We 
must  face  the  facts  of  experience.  There  are  moral 
cripples  and  moral  diseases  incalculably  more  fearful 
than  the  physical.  In  short,  sin  has  begun,  and  con¬ 
tinued  for  ages,  under  the  government  of  Infinite 
Holiness  and  Power.  The  supreme  difficulty  is  to 
explain  the  commencement  of  evil,  rather  than  its 
continuance.  We  are  all  agreed,  however,  that,  in 
spite  of  any  appearances  which  sentiment  would  take 
as  evidence  to  the  contrary,  God  can  no  more  do  a 
little  wrong  than  a  great  one.  We  must  give  up  mere 
sentimeyit ,  therefore ,  as  a  guide  ;  for,  otherwise,  we  must 


OBSTACLES  TO  MABBIAGE. 


117 


assert  that  Crod  is  unjust  on  a  small  scale.  I  do  not 
believe  that  he  is;  and  hence  I  distrust  profoundly 
following  a  light  as  to  the  next  ivorld ,  which  I  see  mis¬ 
leads  me  here  into  a  denial  of  the  Divine  goodness. 

Accordingly  I  believe  that  this  topic  is  larger  than 
the  outlook  of  sentimental  views,  and  that  we .  can 
have  no  adequate,  final  authority  but  the  Scriptures 
on  a  theme  so  vast.  Reason  shows  that  character 
tends  to  final  permanence ;  that,  while  sin  continues, 
it  will  be  justly  punished ;  and  that,  when  character 
becomes  fixed,  it  must  draw  upon  itself  the  effects 
of  its  own  voluntary  moral  remoteness  from  God. 
These  are  severe  and  serene  truths,  utterly  unassaila¬ 
ble  by  the  scientific  method.  But,  as  to  the  ultimate 
effect  of  them  in  the  universe,  we  must  seek  light 
from  another  source  of  illumination. 

It  is,  however,  a  common  misconception  of  the 
Scriptural  doctrine  of  future  retribution,  that  it 
teaches  the  eternal  punishment  of  a  majority  of  all 
created  beings.  I  hold  the  doctrine  of  future  pun¬ 
ishment;  but  it  is  by  no  means  clear  to  me,  that  a 
majority  of  all  who  have  lived  on  our  earth  hitherto 
are  lost.  It  is  one  of  the  roughest  and  most  ghastly 
misrepresentations  of  current  orthodoxy  to  assert 
that  infants  are  lost.  A  majority  of  all  who  have 
gone  from  this  globe  into  the  unseen  in  past  time 
have  been  infants.  Who  knows  what  the  moral 
future  of  this  planet  may  be  ?  Who  can  assert  that 
the  ages  to  come  will  not  so  improve  as  to  shed  into 
the  invisible  world  such  a  number  of  saved  spirits, 
that  in  the  final  picture  of  the  globe  she  will  be  spir- 


118 


MARRIAGE. 


itually  what  she  is  physically,  enswathed  with  light, 
although  casting  the  conical  shadow  called  night  to 
the  vanishing  point  beyond  the  moon  ?  This  is  the 
view  of  the  Tholucks,  Mullers,  and  Dorners.  It  is 
the  view  of  the  Parks  and  Hodges.  (See  Hodge’s 
Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  iii.  p.  880.)  We  must  lift  up 
our  thoughts  to  all  other  worlds.  You  may  say  that 
those  planets  which  accompany  us  about  the  sun  are 
not  at  present  inhabited  !  How  do  you  know  that  ? 
Even  if  I  were  to  grant  the  absurd  proposition  that 
Mercury  is  too  hot,  and  Neptune  too  cold,  for  it  to 
be  possible  for  Omnipotence  to  make  creatures  that 
can  live  in  those  spheres,  how  could  you  know  but 
that  Mercury  is  becoming  ready  to  be  inhabited, 
or  that  Neptune  may  not  have  been  inhabited  in  past 
time?  We  cannot  affirm  that  the  worlds  are  not 
inhabited  now,  or  that  they  have  not  been,  or  that 
they  will  not  be.  Who  will  undertake  to  assert 
that  evil  exists  in  every  planet  in  the  same  virulence 
with  which  it  appears  here?  We  must  regard  all 
other  finite  creatures  in  the  universe  when  we  discuss 
the  doctrine  of  future  punishment.  I  do  not  speak 
of  the  present  ages.  Save  yourselves  from  an  untow¬ 
ard  generation.  But,  for  one,  I  always  think  of  the 
number  of  the  finally  lost  out  of  all  ages  and  worlds 
as  bearing  no  greater  proportion  to  all  the  inhabit¬ 
ants  of  the  intelligent  universe  than  the  number  in 
the  prisons  and  penitentiaries  in  well-ordered  socie¬ 
ties  now  bears  to  the  whole  population.  I  know 
that  men  are  in  prison  yonder  in  the  Charlestown 
wards.  I  know,  too,  that  the  unrepentant  murderer, 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


119 


adulterer,  and  forger  are  in  prison  behind  the  bars  of 
the  very  nature  of  things.  I  think  they  ought  to  be. 
At  the  bottom  of  our  souls  we  feel  that  the  sane, 
unrelenting,  intelligent  murderer  ought  to  be  treated 
differently  by  the  universe  from  the  innocent  man. 
The  unreformed  leper,  and  the  forger,  ought  not  to 
have  peace.  We  feel  that  the  universe,  if  managed 
as  it  ought  to  be,  will  always  affix  penalty  to  wil¬ 
ful  transgression  against  light.  If  the  universe  were 
not  to  do  that,  I  should  wish  to  emigrate  to  some 
other  parish.  It  is  certain  that  Infinite  Holiness  will 
re-act  against  unrighteousness  as  long  as  the  unright¬ 
eousness  endures ;  and  that  what  ought  to  be  done 
while  the  rebellion  continues  will  be  done.  I  am 
glad  that  what  ought  to  be,  is.  [Applause.] 

Allow  me  to  call  a  hush  here,  for  I  am  to  open  the 
Scriptures.  It  is  not  my  office  to  act  as  exegete  in 
this  place.  But  in  giving  three  addresses,  one  on 
the  definition,  one  on  the  proof,  and  one  on  the 
reply  to  objections  to  the  doctrine  of  future  punish¬ 
ment,  I  must  refer  to  the  Scriptural  proof.  In  doing 
so,  of  course  I  can  say  nothing  new,  and  I  do  not 
speak  for  others.  Perhaps  the  best  one  can  do,  to 
secure  freshness  of  treatment  and  befitting  serious¬ 
ness  on  this  theme,  is  to  recite  his  own  reasons  for 
his  personal  convictions. 

If  it  can  be  shown  from  the  Scriptures  that  sin  in 
any  case  is  punished  endlessly,  we  cannot  be  Univer- 
salists.  Accepting  the  Scriptures  as  authority,  why 
am  I  not  a  Universalist  ? 

1.  There  are  six  universals  in  the  Bible,  and  these 


J* 


120 


laM^ 


t-Skr*^ 

MARRIAGE. 


have  been  mistaken  for  a  seventh  universal  which  is 
not  there.  Universal  atonement,  universal  benevo¬ 
lence  of  God,  universal  providential  care  of  God, 
universal  prevalence  of  the  gospel,  universal  resur¬ 
rection,  and  universal  reign  of  Christ,  —  these  six 
universals  are  in  the  Bible.  They  have  been  mis¬ 
taken  for  a  seventh  universal,  namely,  universal 
salvation,  which  is  not  there.  ' 

There  is  no  time  to  enter  into  detail  on  this  point. 
When  I  read  that  there  was  One  “  who  gave  his  life 
a  ransom  for  all  ”  (1  Tim.  ii.  6),  and  “  tasted  death 
for  every  man  ”  (Heb.  ii.  9),  I  find  a  statement  of 
the  universality  of  the  atonement.  When  I  am 
shown  that  it  is  written  that  “  God  is  not  willing 
that  any  should  perish,”  but  desires  that  “  all  should 
come  to  repentance  ”  (2  Pet.  iii.  9),  when  I  am  told 
that  “he  will  have  all  men  to  be  saved,  and  to  come 
to  a  knowledge  of  the  truth”  (1  Tim.  ii.  4),  I  find  in 
these  passages  an  assertion  of  the  universal  benevo¬ 
lence  of  God.  When  I  read  that  “we  trust  in  the 
living  God,  who  is  the  Saviour  of  all  men,  especially 
of  those  that  believe  ”  (1  Tim.  iv.  10),  I  understand 
this  language  to  refer  to  God’s  universal  providential 
care.  When  I  find  it  affirmed  in  the  Scriptures  that 
“  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  remember  and  turn 
unto  the  Lord,  and  all  the  kindreds  and  nations  shall 
worship  before  him  ”  (Ps.  22,  27),  I  find  an  assertion 
of  the  universal  prevalence  of  the  gospel  on  the 
earth.  The  same  is  taught  in  the  passage  which 
says,  “  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto 
me”  (John  xii.  32).  I  read  “that  all  they  that  are 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE.  121 

*? 

in  the  graves  shall  hear  his  voice,  and  come  forth ; 
some  to  eternal  life,  and  some  to  shame  and  everlast¬ 
ing  contempt.” 

Canon  Farrar’s  proof-texts  ( Eternal  Hope,  appen¬ 
dix),  as  I  find  on  examination,  are  proofs  of  the  six 
universals,  but  not  of  the  seventh. 

Julius  Muller  remarks,  with  great  pertinency,  that 
universal  restoration  cannot  occur  before  the  general 
judgment;  for,  if  it  did,  the  parting  of  men  into  two 
classes  would  be  unnecessary  and  impossible.  The 
famous  passage  in  the  fifteenth  of  First  Corinthians, 
and  the  similar  one  in  the  fifth  of  Romans,  asserting 
that,  “  as  in  Adam  all  die,  so  in  Christ  shall  all  be 
made  alive,”  Julius  Muller  affirms  does  not  prove 
universal  restoration,  for  it  refers  to  a  time  before 
the  general  judgment.  There  is  probably  no  passage 
that  has  caused  more  debate  than  this ;  but,  for  one, 
I  am  unable  to  overlook  the  date  of  the  period  to 
which  the  language  alludes,  since  the  scope  of  it 
refers  to  duration  previous  to  the  general  judgment. 
General  restoration  cannot  occur  before  then ;  for,  if 
it  were  thus  to  occur,  there  could  be  no  division  of 
men  into  lost  and  saved. 

2.  It  is  historically  incontrovertible,  that  eighty  out 
of  a  hundred,  or  certainly  the  overwhelming  major¬ 
ity,  of  the  most  acute  and  learned,  the  most  serious 
and  saintly  people,  who  have  studied  the  Bible  under 
the  microscope,  and  upon  their  knees,  and  have  acted 
it  out,  have  understood  it  to  teach  the  .endlessness 
of  future  punishment,  in  some  cases.  For  eighteen 
hundred  years  this  interpretation  has  seen  attack  but 


122 


MARRIAGE. 


not  defeat,  and  has  kept  its  place  under  the  law  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

There  is  almost  nothing  more  worthy  of  attention 
among  the  proofs  of  soundness  of  opinion  than  the 
fair  voice  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
The  fact  is  worth  study  when  an  unpopular  cause 
has  been  appealed  through  court  after  court,  and  yet 
decided  the  same  way,  —  that  is,  against  unreflecting 
sentiment,  again  and  again  and  again.  There  are 
three  generations  in  every  century,  and  there  are 
three  times  eighteen  centuries  in  which  this  question 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  Scriptures  has  been  appealed 
from  court  to  court.  Acute  learning  has  giving 
judgment.  So  has  the  general  popular  sense  of  the 
Christian  world.  Saintly  readers  without  partisan 
prejudice  in  private  life  have  agreed  with  scholars 
competing  with  rivals.  The  vast  majorities  have 
been  forced  to  agree  in  the  repetition  of  previous 
decisions.  Eighteen  centuries,  three  times  each, 
have  repeated  this  decision,  and  no  new  evidence  has 
come  before  the  courts.  In  cases  where  no  new  evi¬ 
dence  is  obtained,  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  think 
that  in  the  twentieth  century  any  guillotine  stands 
ready  for  a  doctrine  that  nineteen  centuries  have 
attempted,  but  have  been  unable,  to  guillotine.  [Ap¬ 
plause.]  The  historical  sense  is  necessary  to  true 
exegesis.  I  do  not  respect  any  doctrine  because  it  is 
old,  or  in  the  mouths  of  majorities,  but  I  do  respect 
propositions  that  have  seen  honest  and  protracted 
battle  but  not  defeat.  I  do  respect  decisions  which 
have  been  appealed  from,  through  court  after  court, 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


123 


more  than  fifty  times,  but  in  all  kinds  of  discussion, 
every  style  of  lawyer  acting  as  a  special  pleader, 
have  been  re-affirmed  by  the  immense  majority  age 
after  age.  That  fortress  has  seen  attack  but  not 
defeat ;  and  therefore  I  think  the  cannonading  of 
its  walls  will  yet  be  harmless. 

3.  Rationalistic  commentators  generally  affirm 
with  Theodore  Parker  and  Ernest  Renan  that  Christ 
did  indeed  teach  the  doctrine  of  endless  punish¬ 
ment,  although  they  do  not  feel  bound  to  accept  his 
authority. 

4.  One  particular  sin,  the  Scriptures  teach,  “  has 
never  forgiveness,  neither  in  this  world  nor  in  the 
world  to  come”  (Mark  iii.  29). 

Several  particular  sins  are  threatened  with  eternal 
punishment  (Matt.  xii.  31,  32 ;  Pleb.  yi.  4,  8,  x.  26, 
27 ;  2  Pet.  ii.  20,  22 ;  1  John  v.  16,  17). 

Tholuck,  wandering  through  his  earlier  studies, 
came  upon  the  text  that  one  particular  sin  will  not 
be  pardoned  in  this  life  or  the  next ;  and  he  gave  up 
restorationism,  face  to  face  with  it,  although  he  had 
been  inclined  to  that  doctrine  previously.  Julius 
Muller  stands  on  that  passage,  and  affirms  that  it  is 
sure  that  one  sin  at  least  has  never  forgiveness  in 
this  state  of  existence  or  in  the  next.  (. Doctrine  of 
Sin ,  book  v.  chap,  v.)  I  do  not  know  how  Canon 
Farrar  can  reconcile  his  scholarship  with  that  of  the 
mass  of  accredited  discussion  in  the  world,  when  he 
says  that  “  neither  in  this  yforld,  nor.  in  the  next,” 
may  mean  “neither  in  the  Jewish  nor  Christian  dis¬ 
pensations,”  {Eternal  Mope,  appendix.)  Surely,  if 


124 


MARRIAGE. 


my  will  were  to  be  interpreted  by  a  lawyer  as  arbi¬ 
trary  as  Canon  Farrar  is  in  his  interpretation  of  that 
passage,  I  should-wish  to  be  alive  to  execute  it. 

5.  Whatever  ambiguity  or  uncertainty  there  may 
be  in  the  use  of  the  words  “  eternal  ”  and  “  everlast¬ 
ing,”  the  negative  particle  “  not”  is  unambiguous,  and 
is  repeatedly  used  in  the  Scriptural  assertions  that 
the  wicked  shall  not  see  life. 

6.  It  is  certain  that  the  English  words  “forever,” 
“eternal,”  and  “everlasting,”  have  as  much  ambiguity 
as  the  corresponding  Greek  terms,  and  yet  so  does 
their  meaning  become  clear  from  their  context,  that 
no  one  thinks  of  disputing  their  significance.  The 
Greek  words  ought  to  be  treated  in  a  similar  manner. 

Sometimes  in  English  the  word  “  everlasting  ”  does 
not  mean  literally  “endless;”  even  the  word  “for¬ 
ever  ”  does  not.  “  I  assign  this  property  to  my 
heirs  forever  ”  !  There  may  be  no  heirs  to-morrow 
morning !  “  He  is  forever  meddling  ”  !  That  ex¬ 

pression  does  not  mean  that  one  is  “  endlessly  ” 
meddling.  It  is  the  colloquial  use  of  the  word.  Six 
times  out  of  a  hundred,  perhaps,  our  own  terms 
“eternal,”  “forever,”  and  even  “everlasting,”  are 
ambiguous,  and  we  must  decide  the  meaning  by  the 
context.  Now,  if  an  ,old  Greek  were  to  come  for¬ 
ward  here,  with  as  little  knowledge  of  the  English 
language  as  the  average  modern  citizen  has  of  the 
Greek  in  which  the  New  Testament  is  written,  I 
could  confuse  him  with  the  question,  Is  eternal  pun¬ 
ishment  endless?  I  could  tell  him  that  six  times 
out  of  a  hundred  the  word  “  eternal  ”  in  the  subtle 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


125 


English  language  does  not  mean  literally  endless. 
Were  he  a  modest  Greek,  a  mere  average  citizen, 
willing  to  confess  his  ignorance  of  the  intricacies  of 
the  English  language,  I  could  puzzle  him.  I  could 
throw  him  into  great  unrest  on  this  point,  by  show¬ 
ing,  through  the  dictionaries,  that  these  words  “  eter¬ 
nal  ”  and  “forever”  have  not  a  fixed  meaning,  and 
must  be  examined  with  keen  caution  by  any  man 
who  has  not  high  scholarship.  Well,  now,  just  as  I 
should  in  that  case,  be  throwing  nothing  but  dust 
into  the  eyes  of  the  old  Greek,  so  I  think  those 
scholars  who  would  have  us  fall  into  unrest  because 
the  Greek  words  are  under  the  same  mental  laws 
with  the  English,  and,  occasionally,  are  in  the  same 
way  ambiguous  in  meaning,  are  throwing  nothing  but 
dust  into  our  eyes.  There  is  an  immense  amount  of 
this  dust  thrown  into  the  eyes  of  the  average  citizen 
as  to  the  meaning  of  these  Greek  terms.  Languages 
have  behind  them  the  same  mental  and  logical  laws. 
Common  words  are  no  more  ambiguous  in  Greek 
than  they  are  in  English.  Just  as  in  English,  so  in 
Greek,  the  context  determines  their  meaning.  There 
is  no  more  need  of  a  man  falling  into  doubt  as  to 
what  the  words  mean  in  Greek  than  in  English. 

The  argument  from  the  explicitness  of  the  language 
in  which  the  eternity  of  future  punishment  is  asserted 
in  the  Greek  New  Testament ,  is  not  outgrown ,  and  never 
will  be. 

A 

.  (1)  Aionios  is  used  sixty-six  times  in  the  New  Tes¬ 
tament.  In  fifty-one  cases  it  is  used  to  express  the 
happiness  of  the  righteous;  twice,  to  express  the 


126 


MARRIAGE. 


duration  of  God’s  attributes ;  six,  where  it  certainly 
denotes  eternal  duration.  In  the  remaining  seven 
instances  it  refers  to  the  death  of  the  wicked.  It 
should  be  interpreted  in  the  seven  instances  as  it  is  in 
the  fifty-nine. 

(2)  Aion  is  used  ninety-five  times  in  the  New 
Testament;  fifty-five,  to  denote  unlimited  duration, 
doubtless ;  thirty-one,  to  denote  a  duration  which  has 
a  limit ;  nine,  to  indicate  the  duration  of  future  pun¬ 
ishment. 

(3)  The  phrase  “for  ever  and  ever”  is  used  more 
than  twenty  times  in  the  New  Testament,  and  always 
in  the  same  signification.  It  is  used  fourteen  times 
in  the  Apocalypse,  and  always  in  the  same  sense.  It 
is  there  employed  to  set  forth  the  duration  of  the 
future  punishment  of  the  lost.  (Rev.  xiv.  11,  xix. 
3,  xx.  10.  See  Professor  Stuart,  President  Bartlett, 
Professor  Tyler,  Alford,  Lange,  Dorner,  Tholuck, 
Bleek,  and  Julius  Muller,  in  loco.') 

7.  The  translation  of  the  words  “eternal,”  “hell,” 
and^  “damnation,”  by  “aionion,”  “gehenna,”  and 

“  condemnation,”  would  not  alter  the  context,  nor 

/ 

the  essential  meaning  of  the  passages  commonly  used 
to  disprove  Universalism. 

Dr.  Angus  told  England  the  other  day,  that  when 
the  new  translation  of  the  Scriptures  appears,  the 
changes  in  sense  will  be  so  trifling  that  only  scholars 
will  notice  them. 

The  contrast  between  the _  eternal  condition  of  the 
righteous  and  the  wicked ,  as  represented  in  Scripture,  is 
not  likely  to  be  erased  in  your  day  or  mine.  (Matt.  vii. 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


127 


13,  14;  Mark.  xvi.  16;  John  iii.  36;  John  v.  28,  29; 
Luke  xvi.  24,  26 ;  Matt.  xxv.  46.  See  also,  John  iii. 
36;  Heb.  xii.  14;  John  iii.  3;  2  Thess.  i.  9;  Phil, 
iii.  19;  Heb.  vi.  8;  Matt.  xiii.  37,  43;  Matt.  iii.  12; 
Mark  ix.  42,  48.) 

How  does  it  change  the  meaning  of  “  everlasting  ” 
to  translate  it  by  that  awkward  term  “  aionion,”  which 
it  is  said  Tennyson  has  once  used  in  a  poem  ?  Canon 
Farrar  is  probably  right  in  saying  that  the  old  Saxon 
word  “hell”  means  more,  in  its  present  acceptance, 
than  the  Greek  “  gehenna,”  but  the  context  is  the 
great  matter  to  be  considered. 

I  want  every  doctrine  confirmed  by  what  I  call  a 
“proof-trend,”  as  distinguished  from  a  “proof-text.” 
Not  the  Biblical  ripple,  but  the  Biblical  gulf  current ! 
He  who  stands  above  the  Biblical  text  is  standing 
above  the  Biblical  ripple.  It  may  be  as  deep  as  the 
ocean  ;  but  one  had  better  lift  up  his  eyes  and  study 
the  Gulf  Stream  in  revelation,  the  great  gulf  cur¬ 
rents,  that  is,  the  analogies  of  doctrines  that  run 
through  revealed  truth ;  and  they  are  not  universal- 
istic  or  optimistic.  [Applause.] 

8. "Certain  individuals,  according  to  the  Scriptures, 
will  never  be  saved.  (Mark  xiv.  21;  John  xvii. 

W2.) 

It  is  said  of  one  individual  that  it  had  been  better 
for  him  if  he  had  never  been  born.  Does  this  war¬ 
rant  us  in  accepting  Canon  Farrar’s  suggestion,  that 
this  famous  phrase  refers  only  to  the  remorse  which 
Judas  will  feel  even  after  he  has  freely  chosen  right¬ 
eousness?  It  were. not  better  for  him  that  he  had 
never  been  born,  if  he  ever  chooses  righteousness. 


128 


MARRIAGE. 


9.  Tlie  Scriptures  teach  that  the  judgment  consists 
largely  in  the  proclamation  and  law  that  he  that  is 
unholy  is  to  be  unholy  still,  and  that  he  that  is  right¬ 
eous  is  to  be  righteous  still,  or  that  character  tends 
to  a  final  permanence,  and  that  sin  from  being  pro¬ 
longed  and  inveterate  may  become  eternal.  A  final 
permanence  of  character  can  be  attained  but  once. 

The  true  translation  of  Mark  iii.  29  includes  the 
far-reaching  phrase  “  eternal  sin.”  “  To  assert  that 
sin  is  eternal,”  says  Alford,  “is  a  legitimate  inference 
from  the  words  ‘hath  never  forgiveness.’  ” 

10.  The  Scriptures  teach  that  there  may  be  such 
sin  against  light  as  to  admit  of  no  atonement, 
(hum.  xv.  22-81 ;  Heb.  vi.  4,  9,  and  x.  26-81 ; 
Mark  iii.  29.) 

It  resists  from  the  very  nature  of  things  that 
those  who  do  that  for  which  they  cannot  forgive 
themselves  never  cease  to  hear  the  laughter  of  the 
soul  at  itself. 

11.  The  analogy  of  doctrine  in  the  Scriptures  pre¬ 
supposes  a  permanent  distinction  between  the  lost 
and  the  saved.  _ 

12.  The  Scriptures  everywhere  insist  that  now  is 
the  time  of  repentance,  and  they  everywhere  make 
the  impression  that  it  is  immeasurably  unsafe  to  de¬ 
pend  on  a  chance  for  repentance  after  death.  [Ap¬ 
plause.] 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


129 


THE  LECTURE. 

If  there  is  any  unmarried  person  in  this  assembly 
who  is  yet  to  be  married  to  one  of  his  own  age,  she 
who  is  to  become  his  wife  is  now  living  on  the  earth. 

*  Approaching  once  more  Pliny’s  villa,  we  find  Corne¬ 
lia,  mother  of  the  Gracchi,  advising  her  sons  to  keep 
themselves  pure,  so  that  all  the  blessings  of  a  virtu¬ 
ous  home  may  be  theirs.  She  asks  the  3^ounger 
Gracchi  to  remember  that  their  wives  are  now  living 
on  the  earth,  and  to  pray  for  their  weal,  although  as 
yet  they  have  not  been  seen  by  their  future  hus¬ 
bands  ;  and  to  pray  for  the  weal  of  those  husbands, 
although  as  yet  they  have  never  been  seen  by  their 
future  wives.  “  Your  best  preservative,”  you  over¬ 
hear  Cornelia  say  to  the  Roman  Gracchi,  “  is  antici¬ 
pation.  Think  that  you  wish  to  win  a  white  soul, 
and  you  will  be  unwilling  to  give  less  than  you  bar¬ 
gain  for.  In  the  midst  of  the  corruptions  of  Rome, 
remember  that  she  who  is  to  be  to  you  what  I  have 
been  to  Titus  Gracchus  will  require,  if  she  is  what  I 
am,  that  you  should  be  to  her  what  Titus  Gracchus 
was  to  me.  These  Greek  tutors  whom  I  have  em¬ 
ployed,”  continues  Cornelia,  addressing  her  sons, 
“  have  been  instructed  by  Plato  and  by  Socrates,  and 
they  have  taught  you  reverence  for  natural  law. 
When  a  supreme  affection  is  given  us  we  are  to  take 
it  as  a  divine  sign  that  God  intends  a  certain  course 
in  life  for  us.  Anticipate  that  God  will  be  as  good 
to  you  as  he  is  to  most  men.  In  due  time  he  will 
open  a  home  for  you.  In  due  time  you  will  come  to 


130 


MARRIAGE. 


x 


the  hearthstone,  which  even  now  he  is  putting  to¬ 
gether,  piece  by  piece.  In  due  time  there  will  be  for 
you  an  opening  of  the  gates  which  enter  the  most 
sacred  temple  in  which  man  can  worship.  Prepare 
afar  off  for  the  event  which  Providence  prepares  for 
you  afar  off.  If  the  Sirens  sing,  take  them  to  your 
future  hearthstone ;  and,  looking  on  it,  turn  your 
back  upon  what  will  be  no  temptation,  as  long  as 
your  heart  is  warmed  by  this  anticipated  family  fire.” 
[Applause.] 

You  agree  with  Cornelia  that  anticipation  is  a 
preservative  in  the  social  life.  You  will  have  her 
sympathy  if  you  examine  with  unconcealed  indigna¬ 
tion  whatever  unnecessarily  prevents  this  healthful 
anticipation.  I  am  to  discuss  the  Modern  Obstacles 
to  Marriage,  or  Hinderances  to  the  Formation  of  New 
Homes.  I  come  once  more  before  my  jury,  contain¬ 
ing  Pliny  and  Cornelia  and  Phocion’s  wife,  and  these 
are  the  propositions  upon  which  to-day  I  ask  their 
opinion :  — 

1.  God,  William  Shakspeare  says,  is  the  best 
maker  of  all  marriages. 

2.  With  relatively  few  exceptions,  he  sends  to 
every  man  and  woman  the  double  gift  of  a  supreme 
permanent  affection,  and  of  opportunity  to  follow  it 
in  marriage. 

3.  Were  all  conscientious,  and  were  health  univer¬ 
sal,  these  exceptions  would  be  fewer. 

4.  Natural  law  requires  that,  where  this  double 
gift  is  sent,  it  should  be  respected  as  a  divine  indica¬ 
tion  that  a  new  home  ought  to  be  founded. 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


131 


In  a  natural  world  a  supreme  will  be  a  permanent 
affection.  But  a  supreme  and  permanent  affection 
of  this  sort  arises  only  between  two.  God  does  not 
send  this  double  gift  at  haphazard.  Behind  every 
supreme  affection  there  are  forces  of  the  most  terrific 
potency,  and  they  are  all  natural  forces.  They  are 
actually  divine.  Whoever  utters  the  phrase  “  natu¬ 
ral  law,”  without  understanding  that  he  is  speaking 
of  God’s  will,  is  yet  unscientific.  Therefore  we  may 
assert,  without  danger  of  disloyalty  to  the  scientific 
method,  that  natural  divine  law  requires  that,  where 
this  double  gift  is  sent,  it  should  be  respected  as  a 
divine  indication  that  a  new  home  should  be  founded. 

5.  But  the  self-support  of  homes  is  also  a  natural 
law. 

You  think  that  I  am  incautious ;  but  I  remember 
that  I  am  in  the  presence  of  Pliny,  who  is  a  states¬ 
man,  and  that  he  will  listen  to  no  mere  sentiment  on 
this  topic.  I  keep  in  mind  the  fact  that  we  must 
have  a  fire  before  we  set  upon  it  the  viands  to  be 
prepared  for  the  family  meal.  The  rudest  proverbs 
of  the  rudest  nations  proclaim  that  we  must  have  a 
fire  before  we  buy  the  kettle. 

6.  Obstacles  to  marriage,  or  hinderances  to  the 
formation  of  self-supporting  new  homes,  are  obstacles 
to  the  free  course  of  divine  natural  law. 

Keep  your  faces  upon  this  jury. 

T.  The  unit  of  society  is  the  family. 

8.  The  strength  of  a  nation  is  in  proportion  to  the 
number  of  its  virtuous,  that  is,  of  its  natural  homes, 
founded  upon  supreme  affections. 


132 


MARRIAGE. 


9.  Society,  as  organized  at  present,  throws  many 
inexcusable  and  even  blasphemous  obstacles  into  the 
course  of  divine  natural  law  as  to  the  formation  of 
new  homes. 

10.  Among  these  natural  and  removable  hinder- 
ances  are :  — 

(1)  Absurd  expensiveness  of  living. 

(2)  Mistaken  social  pride. 

(3)  Low  salaries. 

(4)  Unwise  parental  interference. 

(5)  Poor  opportunities  for  acquaintance  between 
marriageable  persons. 

(6)  The  corruption  of  portions  of  society. 

Pliny  bows  his  head  at  the  proposition  that  virtu¬ 
ous  homes  are  the  foundation  of  the  State.  We 
need  power  to  throttle  communism ;  the  State  needs 
loyalty  to  just  legislation ;  we  want  protection  for 
property  and  for  life  !  Let  us  follow  Emerson’s  ad¬ 
vice,  and  attach  our  chariots  to  the  stars.  Civil 
society  needs  the  terrific  forces  which  lie  behind  the 
supreme  affections  to  guarantee  the  execution  of  law. 
Let  civil  society,  therefore,  foster  family  life,  and 
frown  on  its  enemies.  We  know  that,  as  Shakspeare 
has  said,  “even  a  bad  man  in  love  becomes  better 
than  his  wont.”  We  know  that  it  is  impossible  to 
pass  even  that  tomb  in  the  Pere  la  Chaise  in  Paris, 
of  Abelard  and  Heloise,  without  a  certain  solemnity; 
for  it  is  possible  that  there  was  a  supreme  affection 
there,  although  no  opportunity  of  marriage,  and  so 
no  divine  sanction  for  what  happened.  There  is  a 
solemnity  in  the  undying  force  of  virtuous  passions. 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


133 


Attach  your  civil  and  social  chariots  to  the  stars  in 
the  azure  of  pure  love.  Let  the  transforming  power 
which  makes  a  man  or  a  woman  new,  which  gives 
to  a  man  the  womanly  traits,  and  to  a  woman  the 
manly,  which  is  the  only  builder  of  permanence  in 
any  social  arrangement,  •*—  let  this  virtuous  supreme 
affection,  let  family  life,  be  the  foremost  chariot- 
horse  for  the  State  !  I  see  no  fair  hope  of  guidance 
for  the  future,  unless  this  double  gift  of  God  by 
which  he  indicates  his  will  that  new  homes  should 
be  founded,  is  made  one  of  the  chief  steeds  of  celes¬ 
tial  fire  to  draw  legislation,  property,  life,  through 
what  have  been  dark  ways  of  history  in  time  past, 
and  are  likely  to  be  dark  ways  in  time  to  come,  if  the 
home  be  undermined. 

Communism  asks  for  the  abolition  of  property. 
Socialism  demands  the  abolition  of  the  family.  If  it 
is  not  your  duty  to  put  your  ear  upon  the  surface 
of  the  ground  and  listen  to  the  communistic  specu¬ 
lations  in  the  slums  of  our  cities,  you  will  hardly 
credit  me  when  I  say  that  the  surface  discussions 
on  these  topics  are  only  the  outcropping  edges  of 
great  bowlders  that  run  down  beneath  society.  Along 
the  sterile  hill-slopes  of  New  England  you  pass  the 
plough  through  the  soil,  but  you  get  no  crop.  Why? 
There  are  hidden  stones  beneath  the  sod.  Just  so 
the  churches,  good  literature,  whatever  there  is  noble 
in  human  society,  plough  the  surface  of  some  sections 
of  our  municipalities,  and  get  no  crop.  You  say 
that  the  outside  of  the  sod  is  decorous.  I  tell  you 
that  just  beneath  lie  various  forms  of  infidelity  to 


134 


MARRIAGE. 


the  family,  and  that  while  these  bowlders  are  close 
under  the  sod  you  must  expect  nothing  but  barren¬ 
ness,  even  after  ploughing  and  rain. 

But  Pliny  is  of  opinion,  also,  that  I  am  not  senti¬ 
mental  in  saying  that  God  does  give  to  most  men 
and  women,  not  only  a  mate,  but  a  mate  obtainable. 
The  definition  of  this  double  gift,  which  I  call  a 
divine  indication  that  a  new  home  ought  to  be 
founded,  is  a  mate,  and  a  mate  obtainable.  I  keep 
in  mind  all  the  collisions  of  the  passions.  I  have 
brooded  over  many  points  on  this  topic  which  cannot 
be  discussed  here  even  in  whispers;  but  I  see  no 
objections  to  the  propositions  I  have  read  to  this  jury. 
In  the  name  of  natural  law  it  cannot  be  denied  that, 
when  this  double  gift  is  given,  there  ought  to  be  a 
new  home  founded. 

I  am  supposing  that  the  double  gift  rests  upon 
virtue.  I  am  presuming  that  the  supreme  affection 
is  permanent,  because  it  admires  that  which  does  not 
change. 

I  have  no  faith  at  all  in  underrating  the  natural 
laws  when  they  require  conscientiousness.  We  en¬ 
deavor  to  heal  society  without  making  it  good.  The 
world  is  a  complex  scheme,  and  the  first  tutoring 
it  needs  is  that  which  will  induce  it  to  surrender  to 
moral  law.  After  that  surrender,  how  reform  will 
swim!  We  try  to  set  our  ships  afloat  in  the  sand; 
we  try  to  reform  marriage,  and  push  our  vessels 
off  the  strand,  when  as  yet  they  are  not  off  the 
rocks.  As  long  as  they  lie  there,  they  must  expect 
,  disaster.  Nevertheless  marriage  may  float  in  a 
smooth  sea. 


OBSTACLES  TO  MAKRIAGE. 


135 


Until  we  have  a  natural,  that  is,  a  conscientious 
world,  it  cannot  be  known  by  experience  what  natu¬ 
ral  law  will  do  for  the  gratification  of  a  supreme 
affection ;  but,  if  you  will  give  me  that  world,  there 
will  be  in  it  very  few  not  called  to  marriage,  pro¬ 
vided  society  allows  proper  opportunities  for  ac¬ 
quaintance  between  marriageable  persons. 

Do  not  smile,  my  friends,  if  I  ask  you  to  remember 
that  Horace  Bushnell,  writing  his  book  on  the  reform 
against  nature,  and  with  all  his  saintliness,  with  all 
his  marvellous  knowledge  of  the  human  heart,  was 
willing  to  stand  up  before  the  world  and  suggest 
that  the  churches  themselves  should  study  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  increasing  virtuous  acquaintance  among 
marriageable  persons.  * 

“  Can  the  Christian  pulpit  itself,”  says  Horace 
Bushnell,  “be  true  to  its  office,  without  applying 
itself,  as  things  are  now  going,  to  the  correction  of 
our  false  views  of  marriage,  and  the  consequently 
diminishing  frequency  of  marriages?  If  there  is  a 
postponing  on  one  side,  instigated  by  a  pompous  and 
hollow  ambition,  utterly  wide  of  the  beautiful  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  family  state,  —  if  on  the  other,  where  the 
poison  of  the  same  ambition  also  works,  there  is  a 
consequent  loss  of  hope  and  a  turning  away  to  go 
into  fight  with  men  in  the  rougher  terms  of  equality, 
is  it  not  time  for  the  teachers  of  religion,  the  true 
guardians  of  society,  to  ask  what  duties  may  now  be 
incumbent  on  them?  And  is  there  not,  besides,  a 
possibility  of  accomplishing  something  in  this  matter 
by  organization,  and  so  of  doing  more,  a  hundred- 


136 


MARRIAGE. 


fold,  to  relieve  the  oppressive  over-stock,  under 
which  so  many  fine  women  are  stifled,  than  will 
ever  be  done  by  all  the  office  rights  and  voting 
privileges  they  are  now  so  eager  to  obtain?  Such 
an  organization,  working  only  for  names  that  are 
given,  or  by  friends  suggested,  and  presuming  only, 
under  strictest  bonds  of  secrecy,  to  suggest,  com¬ 
mend,  and  prepare  acquaintance  in  ways  of  proper 
delicacy,  might  bridge  a  great  many  gulfs  of  false 
modesty,  perhaps,  that  will  otherwise  be  forever 
impassably.  In  this  kind  of  reform  there  is  noth¬ 
ing  unhopeful  or  impossible  ;  for  it  is  according  to 
nature,  and  not  a  reform  against  nature.”  (Bush- 
nell,  Women’s  Suffrage ,  p.  95.) 

I  suppose  that  I  shall  bS  accused,  even  under  the 
shadow  of  Horace  Bushnell’s  name,  of  lack  of  cau¬ 
tion  in  mentioning  this  theme.  But  who  does  not 
know  that  in  the  more  luxurious  portions  of  society, 
and  in  those  parts  that  call  themselves  the  most 
highly  cultured,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  obtain  the 
truth  as  to  the  character  of  one  who  may  be  the 
weal  or  woe  of  a  new  home  ?  It  is  a  matter  which 
has  had  curious  treatment  in  many  a  nation  —  this 
absence  of  opportunities  for  acquaintance.  When  I 
was  in  London,  I  took  up  one  day  a  respectable 
newspaper,  managed  by  a  man  who  gave  his  name, 
and  who  had  the  indorsement  of  members  of  the 
nobility  and  of  one  or  two  of  the  clergy;  I  had 
every  reason  to  believe,  from  what  I  heard,  that  the 
newspaper  was  a  respectable  one.  It  was  devoted 
wholly  to  the  multiplication  of  opportunities  of  ac- 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


137 


quaintance  between  marriageable  persons.  I  am 
willing  yon  should  smile  at  such  a  means  of  increas¬ 
ing  the  opportunities  of  acquaintance  between  the 
members  of  this  class,  but  nobody  knows  what  worse 
straits  we  shall  be  forced  to  if  there  is  not  a  little 
more  attention  paid  to  that  part  of  natural  law.  Co¬ 
education  of  the  sexes !  I  am  not  discussing  that 
topic.  How  many  sociables  shall  there  be  in  a 
church?  I  do  not  discuss  that  theme.  What  use 
we  shall  make  of  our  parlors  in  a  social  way,  I  do 
not  volunteer  to  affirm.  But  this  I  do  say,  that  in 
a  haughty,  exclusive  aristocratic  world,  it  is  pretty 
hard  for  a  man  to  know  a  few  things  he  would  be 
very  glad  to  learn.  [Applause.] 

How  shall  I  blazon  here  with  proper  vividness  the 
infamy  of  a  mistaken  social  pride  which  will  not 
marry  until  it  can  equal  the  display  of  some  parent 
who  has  had  a  life  in  which  to  accumulate  a  fortune  ? 
How  shall  I  set  the  proper  stamp  of  scorn  upon  that 
class  of  young  men  who  are  too  full  of  poltroonery  — 
I  am  not  speaking  now  of  those  who  are  full  of  pu¬ 
tridity,  and  who  are  beneath  our  attention  here 
[Applause],  and  who  have  been  sent  beyond  the 
Apennines  by  Pliny  himself,  but  of  those  men 
who  live  a  pure  life,  and  who  are  too  full  of  pol¬ 
troonery  to  take  each  a  better  than  himself  and 
found  a  new  home?  Why  do  they  delay?  They 
have  income  enough.  Why  are  they  so  tardy? 
They  are  in  the  thirties.  They  could  found  a  new 
home.  It  may  be  that  God  has  sent  them  his  double 
gift.  But  they  cannot  drive  a  coach-and-four  quite 


138 


s 


MARKIAGE. 


yet.  They  can  drive  a  coach-and-two  ;  but,  waiting 
for  a  coach-and-six,  they  finally  are  carried  into  their 
forties,  and  sometimes  into  the  desolations  of  con¬ 
firmed  bachelorism. 

I  dare  not  assert  that  a  single  life  is  desolate,  if  a 
supreme  affection  has  been  sent  to  it.  Science  has 
sometimes  affirmed  that  a  man  to  whom  a  supreme 
affection  has  been  sent  is  married.  Under  the  dy¬ 
ing  pillow  of  Washington  Irving  there  were  found  a 
lock  of  hair  and  a  miniature.  Who  will  say  that  he 
led  a  lonely  life?  It  is  taught  by  some  that  the 
whole  physical  form  is  changed  by  a  supreme  affec¬ 
tion.  If  a  mate  is  sent,  but  taken  hence,  one  is 
in  Washington  Irving’s  position,  and  never  lonely. 
Such  persons  are  married  ;  and  God  is  the  maker  of 
such  marriages ;  and  the  breaker  of  them  up ;  and 
the  re-uniter  of  them,  let  us  hope,  in  another  state 
of  existence ! 

When  both  these  gifts  are  sent  —  a  supreme  affec¬ 
tion  and  an  opportunity  to  found  a  new  home  —  it 
is  dastardly,  it  is  a  flat  defiance  of  the  instincts  of 
the  soul,  it  is  a  deep  infamy  upon  manhood,  not  to  be 
willing  to  dare  something  for  the  love  that  one  dares 
call  supreme. 

Is  it  too  much  to  assert  that  modern  society  de¬ 
serves,  perhaps,  as  much  censure  as  infidelity  itself, 
for  its  hinderances  to  marriage  ?  You  have  heard  me, 
on  other  occasions  here,  assailing  infidels  for  their 
attack  on  the  family;  but  what  shall  I  say  of  this 
mistaken  social  pride,  this  absurd  expensiveness  of 
living,  which  in  many  ways  are  more  mischievous  in 


OBSTACLES  TO  MARRIAGE. 


139 


preventing  the  founding  of  new  homes  than  the 
voices  of  infamous  social  theories  themselves  ?  Poor 
Richter  was  always  poor ;  and  he  married  when  he 
had  hardly  .more  than  one  room  in  a  German  cottage 
in  which  to  live.  Richter  affirms  that  “  no  man  can 
live  piously  or  die  righteously  without  a  wife,”  —  a 
sentiment  which  I  cannot  say  that  I  think  science 
indorses.  Some  men  can.  But  I  must  affirm  with 
Richter  that  the  man  who,  when  a  supreme  affection 
has  been  sent  him,  and  an  opportunity  to  found  a 
new,  self-supporting  home,  is  yet  determined  to  live 
alone,  is  living  neither  happily  nor  righteously.  The 
man  who  does  not  look  forward  with  Cornelia’s  pre¬ 
science  and  endeavor  to  form  his  own  hearthstone  by 
anticipating  what  he  will  be  by  and  by,  is  a  man 
likely  to  fall  into  temptation  easily,  and  to  be  drawn 
away  from  virtue. 

Dip  the  soul  in  the  seas  of  ink,  and  it  ceases  to  be 
really  marriageable.  Put  out  the  tire  of  honor  in 
the  heart,  and  it  cannot  be  made  warm  at  a  blazing 
family  fireside.  These  men  who  shiver  through  the 
ways  of  vice,  their  skeleton  souls  without  trust,  how 
shall  they  be  warm  before  their  future  hearthstones  ? 
The  leper  puts  out  his  own  family  fire.  Treat  one 
human  being  in  an  infamous  manner,  and  you  never 
will  treat  another  human  being  in  the  manner  pro¬ 
vided  by  natural  law.  [Applause.]  Only  he  who 
will  look  onward  and  afar,  and  keep  the  family  fire, 
or  the  opportunity  to  kindle  it,  bright,  is  likely  to 
keep  out  of  the  pits  of  perdition.  Pointing  to  these 
rifts  of  Gehenna ;  showing  you  the  blue  flames  pro- 


140 


MARRIAGE. 


trading  themselves  every  now  and  then  through 
these  volcanic  crevices;  exhibiting  to  you,  as  you 
come  to  their  ashen,  treacherous  edges,  how  destruc¬ 
tion  blazes  in  the  lower  throat  of  the  chasms, — I 
beg  leave  to  arraign  this  absurd  expensiveness,  this 
mistaken  social  pride,  low  salaries,  unwise  parental 
interference,  and  poor  opportunities  of  acquaintance 
between  the  marriageable  classes.  So  far  as  they 
violate  natural  law,  the  coolest  science  must  con¬ 
demn  all  these  social  forces  as  guilty  of  pushing  men 
toward  the  Pit  of  blue  fire.  [Applause.] 


VI 


10 VE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  SIXTH  LECTURE  IN  THE  BOSTON 
MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  MARCH  25. 


If  it  be  true  that  any  beauteous  thing 
Raises  the  pure  and  just  desire  of  man 
From  earth  to  God,  the  eternal  fount  of  all, 

Such  I  believe  my  love;  for  as  in  her 
So  fair,  in  whom  I  all  besides  forget, 

I  view  the  gentle  work  of  her  Creator, 

I  have  no  care  for  any  other  thing, 

Whilst  thus  T  love.  Nor  is  it  marvellous, 

Since  the  effect  is  not  of  my  own  power, 

If  the  soul  doth,  by  nature  tempted  forth, 

Enamoured  through  the  eyes, 

Repose  upon  the  eyes  which  it  resembleth, 

And  through  them  riseth  to  the  Primal  Love, 

As  to  its  end,  and  honors  in  admiring; 

For  who  adores  the  Maker  needs  must  love  His  work. 

Michael  Angelo:  Translation  by  Taylor. 


Wer  nicht  die  Frauen  ehrt,  kennt  er  die  Liebe  ? 

Wer  nicht  die  Liebe  kennt,  kennt  er  die  Ehre  ? 

Wer  nicht  die  Ehre  kennt,  was  hat  er  noch  ? 

Schefeh:  Laienbrevier. 


VI. 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

Even  God  cannot  make  sin  happy.  The  question 
as  to  the  possible  future  duration  of  punishment  is, 
therefore,  of  altogether  secondary  interest  compared 
with  that  concerning  the  possible  duration  of  sin. 
Will  any  souls  be  punished  forever  ?  Are  there  any 
reasons  for  believing  that  some  may  fall  into  final 
permanence  of  evil  character,  or  confirmed  voluntary 
moral  remoteness  from  God,  and  so  sin  forever  ?  The 
latter  is  the  inquiry  which  causes  the  cheeks  of 
science  to  grow  pale.  It  knows  that  if  the  second 
question  is  answered  in  the  affirmative  the  first  must 
be  also.  Seriously  ask  whether  character  ever  attaint 
in  human  experience  an  apparent  final  permanence 
on  the  side  of  evil.  The  eyes  of  straightforward 
candor  fastened  upon  the  laws  of  habit  and  the  natu¬ 
ral  operations  of  conscience  in  this  life,  are  in  pres¬ 
ence  of  ranges  of  terrible  and  incontrovertible  facts, 
from  whose  summits  the  scientific  method  sees 
enough  to  blanch  the  cheeks. 

A  few  days  ago,  in  an  attic  about  twelve  feet 

143 


144 


MARRIAGE. 


square,  in  New  York  City,  and  without  any  light,  an 
agent  of  a  newspaper  stooped  down  in  the  darkness 
and  put  his  hand  into  a  gaping  razor-wound  in  the 
neck  of  a  murdered  woman.  Recoiling  in  horror,  he 
ventured  after  a  moment  to  put  his  hand  down  again, 
and  found  it  bathed  in  a  pool  of  blood  on  the  floor  of 
the  attic.  On  thrusting  once  more  his  fingers  into 
the  darkness,  he  found  them  enclosed  by  the  open 
and  yet  warm  gashes  in  the  neck  of  a  second  corpse. 
Light  was  obtained.  Eighteen  stabs  by  a  dirk,  be¬ 
sides  razor-gashes  and  the  marks  of  four  pistol-shots, 
were  found  in  the  body  of  the  woman ;  several  stabs 
in  the  body  of  her  murderer,  and  the  pistol-shot  and 
razor-gashes  which  took  the  man  out  of  this  state  of 
existence.  Six  or  eight  reporters  on  our  metropolitan 
press  described  the  smearing  of  the  walls  of  this  room 
with  the  blood  of  the  two  human  beings  who  had 
struggled  there  in  their  last  hour. 

You  say  there  is  no  hell  in  the  next  world  !  There 
are  hells  in  this  world.  That  is  our  common  speech. 

Who  was  this  woman?  A  person  who  was  not 
known  to  be  of  infamous  character,  although  sus¬ 
pected  to  be  of  that  description.  Who  was  this 
man  ?  A  citizen  formerly  prominent  in  business  in 
Chicago  and  New  York,  a  broker  once  possessed  of 
great  wealth,  and  who,  sinking  little  by  little,  had 
come  into  the  mood  in  which  an  observer  of  this 
murder  saw  him.  It  appeared  from  the  evidence 
given  before  a  jury  that  a  little  girl,  as  this  man  was 
stabbing  his  victim,  looked  in  at  a  crevice  and  rushed 
away  in  fright.  The  testimony  was  that  the  man’s 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


145 


eyes,  as  he  bent  over  the  body  and  thrust  his  dirk 
again  and  again  into  the  flesh,  looked  like  tennis- 
balls.  “  Such  another  face,”  said  the  poor  girl,  “  I 
hope  never  to  see  in  this  world  or  the  next.”  This 
is  not  a  picture  drawn  by  Dickens.  This  is  no  fear¬ 
ful  scene  out  of  Dante’s  Inferno.  This  is  average 
life  in  the  hells  of  this  world. 

I  read  in  a  report,  written  probably  by  a  Bohe¬ 
mian  theologian,  that  a  young  man  the  other  day  met 
a  fair  young  woman  at  Coney  Island.  She  was  the 
delight  of  a  household.  She  loved  this  dashing  new 
acquaintance.  He  led  her  slowly  toward  the  brink 
of  infamy,  and  finally  pushed  her  off  the  precipice ; 
and  when,  bruised  and  bleeding,  and  in  despair,  she 
turned  to  him  for  assistance,  he  told  her  to  plunge 
into  the  seas  of  ink  and  be  out  of  his  sight  and  the 
world’s.  She  brought  a  legal  complaint  against  him, 
but  by  the  trickery  of  lawyers  she  was  put  in  peril 
of  being  sent  to  prison,  while  the  monster  who  had 
given  her  this  cool  advice,  after  murdering  her  peace, 
was  allowed  to  go  free.  He  was  one  of  the  dapper 
little  smirks  and  sneaks,  with  not  enough  soul  in  him 
to  be  worth  saving.  [Applause.]  At  any  rate,  it  is 
doubtful  whether  he  had  not  passed  into  that  mood 
of  induration,  that  judicial  blindness,  which  precedes 
final  permanence  of  character  on  the  evil  side. 
According  to  the  report  of  half  a  dozen  New-York 
papers,  he  came  into  the  court-room,  and  after  listen¬ 
ing  to  the  evidence,  and  finding  that  the  judge  was 
inclined  to  leniency,  he  stood  up  in  presence  of  the 
lawyers,  brushing  his  coat  and  rubbing  his  gloved 


146 


MARRIAGE. 


hands :  “  Send  her  up,  judge  ;  send  her  up.  It  will 
do  her  good.”  —  “  Great  heavens,”  said  the  judge, 
“  how  I  wish  I  could  send  you  up,  or  down,  rather ! 
Get  out  of  this  court !  ”  [Applause.] 

You  should  not  approve  a  sentiment  so  severe  ! 
That  judge  was  not  sufficiently  liberal !  Great  Nature 
spoke  in  him ;  and  if,  by  and  by,  the  same  volcanic 
nature  shall  speak  in  a  voice  from  a  flaming  White 
Throne,  you  will  find  no  principles  involved  in  that 
final  sentence  which  are  not  involved  in  the  sentence 
we  pass  here  upon  the  adulterer,  and  the  seducer  and 
the  murderer.  Law  is  a  unit  through  out  the  uni¬ 
verse  and  precisely  that  recoil  of  the  depths  of 
human  nature,  that  recoil  of  the  innermost  portion 
of  conscience  against  wilful  crime,  which  here  makes 
a  distinction  between  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  and, 
in  spite  of  all  attack  from  Bohemian  and  Sofa  the¬ 
ology,  in  spite  of  every  theological  blatherskite,  is 
insisted  on  here,  —  that  distinction  will  endure  !  It  is 
a  part  of  the  nature  of  things.  A  stern,  serene 
morning  is  rising  on  the  whole  topic  of  final  per¬ 
manence  of  character,  and  it  comes  from  the  up- 
bursting  dawn  of  a  better  knowledge  of  conscience. 

Allow  me  to  ask  any  who  make  objections  to  the 
theory  of  future  punishment,  where  the  problems  in¬ 
volved  in  cases  like  these  two  will  obtain  solution  ? 
Why,  better  light  beyond  the  grave,  no  doubt,  will 
teach  these  persons  what  they  should  do !  They  had 
light  here  ;  they  did  not  follow  it.  Light  was  poured 
upon  them  here  in  deluges.  Did  they  see  it?  Or, 
if  they  did,  did  they  love  it  ?  There  is  the  interior 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


147 


question  on  all  this  matter  of  future  light.  We  must 
love  the  light  as  well  as  see  it.  When  his  violation 
of  natural  law  here  brings  a  man  into  such  a  state 
that  he  is  callous  to  all  the  loftier  impulses  of  man¬ 
hood,  when  his  nature  is  inverted  and  he  makes  evil 
his  delight,  I  find  no  scientific  reason  for  predicating 
that  light  beyond  the  tomb  will  have  a  greater  effect 
than  deluges  of  light  on  this  side  have  had.  He  has 
here  been  enswathed  in  light;  he  has,  it  may  be, 
been  put  at  the  focus  of  light. 

These  two  cases  represent  two  kinds  of  evil,  —  one 
bold,  audacious  sinning  against  illumination ;  the 
other  judicial  blindness  to  light.  These  two  kinds 
of  hells  we  see  on  this  globe.  If  law  is  a  unit,  who 
can  say  that  those  who  go  out  of  life  thus  sinning 
against  illumination,  are  to  change  in  the  next  world 
at  once  ?  They  go  like  arrows  with  the  points  bent 
to  the  left.  It  may  be  the  bending  is  not  irreversible. 
Retaining  personality  in  the  next  life,  of  course  the 
soul  retains  its  freedom.  But  go  into  that  life  as 
an  arrow  bent  to  the  left,  and  when  you  strike  the 
bosses  of  God's  buckler,  you  are  glanced  to  the  left. 
It  may  be  that  your  predominant  choice  as  you  enter 
the  next  life  is  turned  only  .a  little  to  the  left.  I  do 
not  need  extreme  cases  to  illustrate  the  law.  As  you 
have  hated  the  last  light  here,  you  will  hate  the  first 
light  there.  In  sinning  against  it  there  will  be  pro¬ 
duced  a  new  reaction,  itself  a  cause  of  further  re¬ 
action  against  the  light.  Thus,  from  a  little  bending 
of  the  predominant  choice,  you  m^y  go  into  the  next 
life  hating  the  first  light  you  meet,  and  from  the  re- 


148 


MARRIAGE. 


action  of  sin  against  that,  you  may  hate  the  second, 
and  the  third,  and  the  fourth  mass  of  light  you 
meet. 

There  is  no  scientific  ground  for  predicting  that 
the  arrow  bent  to  the  left  will  glance  to  the  right. 

You  are  turned  to  the  right  only  a  little  ;  but 
when  you  strike  yonder,  you  glance  in  the  direction 
toward  which  you  are  bent. 

The  law  of  cause  and  effect,  I  believe,  rules  over 
the  whole  theme  of  future  reward  and  punishment 
as  thoroughly  as  over  the  physical  universe.  I  do 
not  assert  that  our  souls  are  under  any  necessity ; 
but  the  operation  of  cause  and  effect,  although  per¬ 
suasion  be  the  connection  between  the  two  in  the 
region  of  the  will,  is  just  as  certain  in  that  region,  as 
in  the  range  of  physical  gravitation.  Certainty  and 
necessity  are  two  things. 

Fastening  your  eyes  upon  these  typical  burning 
spots  of  human  experience  this  side  the  veil,  will  you 
hear  Whittier’s  words,  which  are  so  often  quoted  as 
a  justification  of  universal  hope  ?  In  1867  Whittier 
wrote  his  famous  poem  on  “The  Eternal  Good¬ 
ness  :  ”  — - 

“I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their  f ronded  palms  in  air ; 

I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care. 

“  And  so  beside  the  silent  sea 
I  wait  the  muffled  oar; 

No  harm  from  Him  can  come  to  me, 

On  ocean  or  on  shore." 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


149 


Put  these  words  in  the  lips  of  the  man  who  went 
hence  with  that  murder  and  suicide  on  his  soul ! 
That  man  might  better  have  sung :  — 

“And  so  beside  the  silent  sea 
I  wait  the  muffled  oar, 

No  good  from  Him  can  come  to  me, 

On  ocean  or  on  shore,” 

while  I  am  myself,  or  what  I  now  am.  Whittier 
adds : — 

“  O  brothers  !  if  my  faith  is  vain, 

If  hopes  like  these  betray, 

Pray  for  me  that  my  feet  may  gain 
The  sure  and  safer  way.” 

So  he  sang ;  but  it  is  significant  that  when  we 
turn  on  a  year,  in  the  mellowing  ripeness  of  this 
poet’s  wisdom,  we  find  a  later  production  which  is 
as  yet  only  rarely  quoted,  bat  which  seems  to  be  the 
deepest  voice  of  his  final  philosophy :  — 

“  Though  God  be  good,  and  free  be  heaven, 

No  force  divine  can  love  compel ; 

And,  though  the  song  of  sins  forgiven 
May  sound  through  lowest  hell, 

“  The  sweet  persuasion  of  His  voice 
Respects  thy  sanctity  of  will. 

He  giveth  day  :  thou  hast  thy  choice 
To  walk  in  darkness  still. 

“  No  word  of  doom  may  shut  thee  out, 

No  wind  of  wrath  may  downward  whirl, 

No  swords  of  fire  keep  watch  about 
The  open  gates  of  pearl ; 


150 


MARRIAGE. 


“  A  tenderer  light  than  moon  or  sun, 

Than  song  of  earth  a  sweeter  hymn, 

May  shine  and  sound  forever  on 
And  thou  be  deaf  and  dim. 

“  Forever  round  the  Mercy-seat 

The  guiding  lights  of  Love  shall  burn  : 

But  what  if,  habit-bound,  thy  feet 
Shall  lack  the  will  to  turn  ? 

“  What  if  thind  eye  refuse  to  see, 

Thine  ear  of  heaven’s  free  welcome  fail, 

And  thou  a  willing  captive  be, 

Thyself  thy  own  dark  jail  ?  ” 

Whittier  :  The  Answer. 

I  recognize  in  that  poem  a  correct  statement  of  the 
doctrine  of  future  retribution. 

These  details  of  definition  I  have  given  because 
the  best  reply  to  the  objections  to  this  doctrine  is  a 
correct  statement  of  what  the  doctrine  is.  Face  to 
face  with  the  facts  of  life  and  with  Whittier’s  poem, 
how  all  the  ordinary  objections  fall  to  dust ! 

1.  It  is  objected  that  infinite  punishment  is  inflicted 
for  finite  sin.  This  is  a  misstatement  of  the  doctrine. 
The  true  statement  is,  that  eternal  punishment  is  the 
necessary  accompaniment  of  eternal  sin.  While  sin 
continues,  its  effects  will  follow.  God  is  of  such  a 
nature  that  what  ought  not  to  be,  he  must  regard 
with  displacency.  He  is  under  no  obligation  not  to 
express  that  displacency.  If  a  sin  be  unrepented, 
it  is  continued ;  and  so  final  impenitence  is  only 
another  phrase  for  continued  sin.  There  are  reasons 
for  believing  that  some  men  may  fall  into  permanent 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


151 


dissimilarity  of  feeling  with  God  and  its  conse¬ 
quences.  That  is  my  definition  of  perdition.  It  is 
also  Whittier’s. 

2.  It  is  objected  that  albility  to  repent  continues 
forever  in  every  free  agent.  Whittier  admits  this, 
but  is  not  puzzled  by  the  fact.  The  reply  to  this 
objection  is,  that  the  ability  to  repent  does  continue  ; 
but  that  ability  and  willingness  are  two  things,  and 
that  the  latter  is  not  proved  by  proving  the  former. 

Pardon  me  if  I  say  that  I  have  taken  much  pains 
to  read  whatever  is  said  on  the  other  side,  and  that  I 
do  not  know  where  any  writer  in  favor  of  restora- 
tionism  meets  the  argument  from  the  tendency  of 
character  to  become  permanent  under  the  law  that 
repeated  sin  impairs  the  judgment,  and  that  he  whose 
judgment  is  impaired  sins  repeatedly.  Whenever 
that  point  is  touched  by  writers  on  the  Restorationist 
and  Universalist  side,  it  is  dropped  like  hot  iron.  Of 
course  it  is  futile  to  sav  that  law  is  not  a  unit,  and 
that  beyond  the  grave  this  tendency  to  permanence 
will  not  exist  as  well  as  here.  Cases  are  brought 
*  forward  of  persons  reforming  in  old  age.  These  are 
thought  remarkable,  chiefly  because  they  are  varia¬ 
tions  from  an  admitted  tendency.  The  exceptions 
only  prove  the  rule. 

3.  It  is  objected  that  the  doctrine  of  future  punish¬ 
ment  teaches  that  a  majority  of  the  human  race  is 
lost.  This  is  a  misconception.  (Hodge,  Theology, 
vol.  iii.  p.  880.) 

4.  It  is  objected  that  the  torments  of  the  lost  are 
physical.  This  again  is  a  misconception. 


152 


MARRIAGE. 


5.  It  is  objected  that  the  Scriptures  teach  universal 
restoration. 

The  American  Unitarian  Association,  in  their  an¬ 
nual  report,  in  1853,  affirmed  before  the  world :  “  It 
is  our  firm  conviction  that  the  final  restoration  of  all 
men  is  not  revealed  in  the  Scriptures.”  They  go  on 
to  assert  that  the  matter  is  left  there  in  darkness, 
and  they  found  a  hope  of  such  restoration  on  philo¬ 
sophical  grounds.  It  is  becoming  more  and  more 
unusual  for  the  shrewdest  scholars  to  attempt  to 
defend  universal  hope  as  to  the  finally  impenitent 
by  Scriptural  texts.  Canon  Farrar  himself  affirms 
that,  if  the  Scriptures  were  to  teach  the  usual  doc¬ 
trine  on  this  theme,  he,  should  reject  the  Scriptures 
and  accept  philosophy  as  his  guide. 

Are  you  in  doubt  as  to  the  meaning  of  what  is 
said  in  the  Scriptures  concerning  preaching  to  spirits 
in  prison?  Certainly  you  will  find  commentators 
divided  as  to  who  these  spirits  in  prison  were, 
whether  they  were  those  who  lived  before  the  flood, 
or  those  who  have  passed  out  of  this  life.  My  own 
feeling  about  that  passage  is  that  it  means  only  that 
light  is  kept  before  the  lost.  It  does  not  necessarily 
mean  that  they  love  the  light.  Whittier’s  poem 
shows  why  light  kept  before  the  lost  is  ineffectual. 

6.  It  is  objected  that  temporary  evil  is,  but  that 
eternal  evil  is  not,  consistent  with  the  Divine  Good¬ 
ness. 

This  objection  brings  up,  of  course,  the  whole 
topic  of  the  origin  of  evil. 

Archbishop  Whately  was  accustomed  to  say :  “  The 


LOYE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE, 


153 


main  difficulty  is  not  the  amount  of  evil  that  exists, 
but  the  existence  of  any  at  all.  I  will  undertake  to 
explain  to  any  one  the  final  condemnation  of  the 
wicked,  if  he  will  explain  to  me  the  existence  of 
the  wicked.”  There  is  no  justification  of  the  Divine 
Goodness  possible  on  the  ground  of  a  philosophy 
which  asserts  that  God  must  bring  evil  to  an  end, 
because  he  is  infinitely  good  and  powerful'.  On  the 
ground  of  that  same  philosophy,  he  ought  never  to 
have  permitted  evil  to  begin.  He  is  infinitely  good 
and  powerful  now,  and  cannot  by  this  philosophy  be 
excused  for  allowing  evil  to  continue.  But  scenes 
like  these  I  have  outlined  are  beheld  by  the  moon 
only  too  often,  and  sometimes  by  the  sun.  An  infi¬ 
nitely  powerful  and  good  Being  can  no  more  do  a 
little  wrong  than  a  great  one.  Personally,  I  give  up 
the  hope  that  I  can  construct  a  consistent  theodicy 
upon  the  ground  of  a  demand  on  God  to  put  an  end 
to  evil,  if  he  is  to  prove  his  own  goodness.  We 
believe  in  his  goodness  on  the  ground  of  the  perfect 
tion  of  the  moral  law.  But  we  know  that  he  has 
permitted  evil,  and  we  believe  he  could  not  wisely 
have  prevented  it.  If  that  be  true  of  the  past,  who 
shall  say  that  the  future  will  not  exhibit  the  same 
phenomena  under  the  unity  and  universality  of  law 
which  the  present  exhibits  ?  I  could  not  believe  God 
to  be  good  in  the  present,  if  I  held  the  fundamental 
propositions  which  underlie  the  philosophy  of  res- 
torationism. 

It  is  beyond  question  that  in  this  life  a  momentary 
act  may  bring  life-long  penalty.  That  is  the  way 


154 


MARRIAGE. 


the  world  is  made.  I  believe  that  the  universe  is  all 
of  a  piece.  It  is  not  necessary  to  assert  that  men 
are  punished  forever  for  the  sins  of  the  hand’s  breadth 
of  duration  we  call  time,  except  they  are  unrepented, 
and  so  continued ;  but  it  would  be  according  to 
analogy  if  character  freely  formed  and  brought  into 
operation  here  were  allowed  to  produce  effects  per¬ 
manently. 

The  law  of  the  Persistence  of  Force  has  great,  and 
as  yet  unfathomed,  applications  to  the  whole  theme 
of  future  rewards  and  punishment. 

Balfour  Stewart  and  Professor  Tait  most  sugges¬ 
tively  apply  to  the  topic  of  retribution  the  principle 
of  Continuity,  which  they  have  learned  to  reverence 
•in  physical  science.  They  speak  with  no  theological 
bias,  but  their  language  will  be  apt  to  hush  into  awe 
any  reader  who  reveres  the  scientific  method :  — 

“  To  some  extent,  no  doubt,  Christ’s  description  of  the  Uni¬ 
versal  Gehenna  must  be  regarded  as  figurative,  but  yet  we  do 
not  think  that  the  sayings  of  Christ  with  regard  to  the  Unseen 
World  ought  to  be  looked  upon  as  nothing  more  than  pure 
figures  of  speech.  We  feel  assured  that  the  principle  of  Con¬ 
tinuity  cries  out  against  such  an  interpretation  :  may  they  not 
rather  be  descriptions  of  what  takes  place  in  the  unseen  uni¬ 
verse,  brought  home  to  our  minds  by  means  of  perfectly  true 
comparisons  with  the  processes  and  things  of  this  present  uni¬ 
verse  which  they  most  resemble?  And  just  as,  in  the  visible 
universe,  there  is  apparently  an  enormous  and  inexplicable 
waste  of  germs,  seeds,  and  eggs  of  all  kinds,  which  die  simply 
because  they  are  useless,  —  analogy  would  lead  us  to  conclude 
that  something  similar,  and  to  at  least  as  enormous  an  extent, 
happens  in  the  Unseen  with  the  germs  of  spiritual  frames. 
Thus  the  Christian  Gehenna  bears  to  the  Unseen  Universe  pre- 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


155 


cisely  the  same  relation  as  the  Gehenna  of  the  Jews  did  to  the 
city  of  Jerusalem;  and  just  as  the  fire  was  always  kept  up  and 
the  worm  ever  active  in  the  one,  so  are  we  forced  to  contem¬ 
plate  an  enduring  process  in  the  other. 

“  For  we  cannot  easily  agree  with  those  who  would  limit  the 
existence  of  evil  to  the  present  world.  We  are  drawn,  if  not 
absolutely  forced,  to  surmise  that  the  dark  thread  known  as 
evil  is  one  which  is  very  deeply  wToven  into  that  garment  of 
God  which  is  called  the  Universe.  We  are  led  to  regard  evil 
as  eternal,  and  therefore  wre  cannot  easily  imagine  the  universe 
without  its  Gehenna,  where  the  worm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is 
not  quenched.  The  process  at  all  events  would  seem  to  be  most 
probably  an  enduring  one.”  ( The  Unseen  Universe ,  pp.  265, 
266.) 

Against  light,  and  in  the  teeth  of  all  opposing  dis- 
suasions,  a  man  may  rush  into  murder,  into  leprosy, 
into  suicide,  and  so  sin  that  he  cannot  forgive  him¬ 
self.  That  is  a  possibility  which  replies  to  every 
objection,  not  grounded  on  the  very  structure  of  the 
human  spirit.  God  has  not  so  made  us  that  our 
natures  are  an  organized  lie.  In  the  incontrovertible 
fact,  that  a  man  may  so  sin  against  light  that  he  can¬ 
not  forgive  himself,  the  human  soul,  by  its  revela¬ 
tory  structure,  proclaims  that  there  may  easily  be 
eternal  penalty  for  sin.  The  deepest  laughter  of  the 
soul  at  itself  it  cannot  hear  more  than  once  without 
hearing  forever. 

THE  LECTURE. 

John  Milton,  Michel  Angelo,  Goethe,  and  Byron 
are  at  the  door  of  Pliny’s  villa,  and  ask  to  be  received 
as  guests.  There  is  with  them  Elizabeth  Barrett 


156 


MARRIAGE. 


Browning.  Goethe  and  Byron  desire  to  be  received 
to  the  hospitalities  of  the  villa,  and  on  terms  of  social 
equality  with  their  fellow-travellers.  The  Pagan  jury 
ask  who  these  people  are.  In  reply  I  request  Pliny  to 
listen  to  a  statement  in  his  own  language  of  John 
Milton’s  experience  when  a  young  man  in  Italy  : 
“  Deum  hie  rursus  testern  in  vocem  me  his  omnibus  in 
locis  ubi  turn  multa  licent ,  ah  omni  flaquitio  ac  probo , 
integrum  atque  intactum  vixisse ,  illud  perpetuo  cogitan - 
tern  si  hominum  latere  oculos  possem ,  Dei  certe  non 
posse” 

In  other  words,  John  Milton  affirms  that,  when  a 
young  man  in  the  midst  of  the  temptations  of  Italian 
cities,  he  lived,  as  he  can  call  God  to  witness,  a  life 
perfectly  fleckless,  and  that  he  did  this  because  he 
constantly  thought  that,  although  he  might  escape 
the  eyes  of  men,  assuredly  he  could  not  those  of  God. 
Panthea  and  Phocion’s  wife  and  Pliny  are  further 
informed  that  John  Milton  deserves  to  be  credited 
when  he  says  this ;  and  he  is  admitted  to  the  guest- 
chambers. 

Who  is  Michel  Angelo?  There  was  a  Vittoria 
Colonna,  and  this  Angelo  was  her  friend.  With 
Renata  of  Ferrara  and  Margaret  of  Navarre,  she 
made  up  a  triumvirate  which  led  the  culture  of  all 
Italy  when  there  was  a  hope  that  Italians,  under  the 
inspiration  of  O chino,  might  have  a  political  as  well 
as  a  religious  Renaissance.  Pliny  is  told  that  among 
the  seven  hills  of  Rome  this  Michel  Angelo  lifted  up 
another  hill,  —  the  dome  of  St.  Peter’s.  “  I  will  hang 
the  Pantheon  in  the  air,”  was  his  phrase  before  he 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


157 


began  work  on  that  structure.  Pliny  is  also  informed 
that  in  the  city  of  London,  in  Hyde  Park,  where 
men  of  our  day  have  erected  a  monument  to  Prince 
Albert  and  have  chiselled  upon  it  the  figures  of  the 
great  of  all  the  centuries,  the  only  man  whose  figure 
is  repeated  twice  is  this  same  Angelo.  Raphael  sits 
in  the  panel  which  celebrates  the  history  of  painting, 
and  this  Angelo  leans  upon  his  chair.  Then  on  the 
panel  which  celebrates  the  history  of  architecture 
and  sculpture,  Angelo  is  repeated  in  the  centre  of  the 
group.  But  more  noble  than  the  best  achievement  of 
Michel  Angelo  in  architecture,  more  touching  than 
any  thing  he  did  in  marble,  more  majestic  than  that 
dome  of  St.  Peter’s,  is  this  sonnet  of  his  written  to 
Vittoria  Colonna.  As  I  am  able  to  assure  Pliny,  it  is 
worthy  of  being  trusted  as  a  transcript  of  personal 
experience.  Condivi  says,  in  his  Life  of  Angelo, 
that  the  man  was  almost  insane  at  the  death  of  this 
Vittoria  Colonna.  We  have  all  heard  how  Angelo 
went  into  her  room  when  life  had  left  her  body,  and 
how  he  stood  there,  strong  man  as  he  was,  and 
ventured  to  kiss  the  back  of  her  hand.  He  said  to 
Condivi,  that  he  never  blamed  himself  for  any  one 
omission  quite  so  much  as  for  his  having  thought  it 
best  not  to  kiss  her  cheeks  and  her  forehead  in  that 
last  farewell.  This  mighty  sculptor  and  architect 
was  a  singer  also.  Perhaps  of  all  sonnets  addressed 
by  man  to  woman,  this  by  Michel  Angelo  to  Vittoria 
Colonna  is  the  best :  — 


158 


MARRIAGE. 


“  The  might  of  one  fair  face  sublimes  my  love, 

For  it  hath  weaned  my  heart  from  low  desires; 

Nor  death  I  heed,  nor  purgatorial  fires. 

Thy  beauty,  antepast  of  joys  above, 

Instructs  me  in  the  bliss  that  saints  approve ; 

For,  oh !  how  good,  how  beautiful,  must  be 
The  God  that  made  so  good  a  thing  as  thee, 

So  fair  an  image  of  the  heavenly  dove. 

Forgive  me  if  I  cannot  turn  away 

From  those  sweet  eyes  that  are  my  earthly  heaven ; 

For  they  are  guiding  stars,  benignly  given 
To  tempt  my  footsteps  to  the  upward  way ; 

And  if  I  dwell  too  fondly  in  thy  sight, 

I  live  and  love  in  God’s  peculiar  light.” 

Michel  Angelo,  translation  of  J.  E.  Taylor . 

This  man  is  admitted  to  the  guest-chambers  of 
Pliny’s  villa. 

But  who  is  Mrs.  Browning?  Worthy  to  be  read 
next  after  Angelo’s  words  is  many  a  phrase  of  the 
famous  Portuguese  Sonnets,  —  the  best  expressions  of 
love  ever  addressed  in  literature  by  woman  to  man. 
Pliny  will  allow  me  to  read  only  one  short  statement 
of  the  mood  of  this  woman’s  heart :  — 

“Yet  love,  mere  love,  is  beautiful  indeed, 

And  worthy  of  acceptation.  Fire  is  bright, 

Let  temple  burn,  or  flax !  An  equaldight 
Leaps  in  the  flame  from  cedar-plank  or  weed. 

And  love  is  fire ;  and  when  I  say  at  need, 

I  love  thee  .  .  .  mark  ...  I  love  thee !  in  thy  sight 
I  stand  transfigured,  glorified  aright, 

With  conscience  of  the  new  rays  that  proceed 
Out  of  my  face  toward  thine.  There’s  nothing  low 
In  love,  when  love  the  lowest ;  meanest  creatures 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE.  159 

Who  love  God,  God  accepts  while  loving  so ; 

And  what  I  feel  across  the  inferior  features 

Of  what  I  am,  doth  flash  itself,  and  show 

IIow  that  great  work  of  Love  enhances  Nature’s.” 

This  woman  is  admitted  to  a  guest-chamber. 

Who  is  Goethe  ?  Can  he  be  received  on  terms  of 
equality  with  Milton  and  Angelo  and  this  woman? 
When  I  was  in  Weimar,  I  looked  two  days  to  find 
the  grave  of  the  wife  of  Goethe,  and  looked  in  vain. 
No  one  reveres  more  than  I  do  this  man’s  intellectual 
record ;  but  will  the  brilliancy  of  his  career  in  that 
particular  admit  him  here  to  gaze  on  Panthea’s  eyes 
and  those  of  Phoeion’s  wife  ?  A  pagan  jury  is  now 
acting  as  a  host,  and  is  not  willing  to  mix  moral 
opposites  under  the  same  roof.  Goethe’s  biographer 
says  that  nobody  knows  where  his  wife  is  buried. 
Who  was  his  wife?  Mrs.  Browning  must  hear  the 
record.  Milton  must,  and  Angelo.  On  one  of  his 
visits  to  Italy,  Goethe  left  his  child  in  the  care  of  Her¬ 
der.  Eight  years  passed  afterwards  before  Goethe’s 
marriage  to  the  mother  of  this  child.  You  feel  your 
flesh  creeping  upon  your  bones,  when,  in  Germany, 
which  loves  the  home  life  so  profoundly,  you  stand,  as 
I  stood  once,  at  the  heads  of  the  cenotaphs  of  Goethe 
and  Schiller,  in  that  cemetery  at  Weimar,  and  find 
Schiller’s  coffin  covered  over  with  silver  leaves  by  the 
mothers  and  daughters  of  Germany,  and  Goethe’s 
bare.  No  doubt  more  lectures  are  delivered  in 
the  universities  on  Goethe  than  on  Schiller;  but 
it  is  the  latter  poet,  with  the  really  German  domes¬ 
tic  record,  who  expressed  the  heart  of  the  Teutonic 


160 


MARRIAGE, 


land.  His  tomb  is  wet  with  tears  ten  times  where 
Goethe’s  is  once.  I  dare  predict,  that,  in  time  to 
come,  the  emotional  side  of  the  domestic  portion 
of  the  German  nature  will  have  Schiller  with  his 
German  ideals  for  its  representative,  and  not  Goethe 
with  his  French  ideals.  Remember  how  the  evils  of 
the  court  life  of  Versailles  had  corrupted  Germany, 
how  little  Weimar  aped  French  fashions;  and  yet 
you  cannot  excuse  this  man  for  his  record.  All  that 
his  best  biographers  claim  is  that  the  evil  in  his  life 
has  been  exaggerated  in  popular  judgment.  Under 
the  natural  laws  reverenced  by  Angelo  and  Mrs. 
Browning  and  Milton,  it  is  certain  that  he  was 
guilty.  He-  was  so  guilty  that  his  own  nation  at  this 
moment  stands  with  blushing  cheeks  to  apologize  for 
his  record.  Whatever  Goethe  may  have  become  in 
his  later  years,  whatever  Goethe  may  be  now,  we 
must  say  of  him,  as  he  stands  here  just  returning 
from  Italy,  his  child  living  north  of  the  Alps,  and  he 
an  unmarried  man,  that  he  is  not  a  fit  companion  for 
John  Milton  and  Mrs.  Browning.  [Applause.]  This 
Pagan  jury  are  of  that  opinion,  and  I  read  to  them 
Emerson’s  saying,  that  Goethe  was  “incapable  of 
surrender  to  the  moral  sentiment,”  and  so  we  “  can¬ 
not  really  love  him.”  He  is  not  admitted  to  these 
chambers. 

But  will  Byron  be  ?  What  is  his  record?  Walk 
backward,  and  conceal  the  shame.  A  brilliant  intel¬ 
lect,  assuredly !  But  can  he  go  in  here  to  face  Pan- 
thea  and  Phocion’s  wife?  Can  he  be  admitted  on 
terms  of  social  equality  to  this  villa  which  has  only 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


161 


pagan  guidance?  We  are  consulting  great  nature  in 
looking  into  the  faces  of  this  jury.  I  speak  in  meta¬ 
phor.  This  is  only  one  way  of  presenting  a  very  dry 
and  intricate  theme;  twenty  ways  might  be  chosen. 
Goethe  and  Byron  stand  there,  and  plead  for  them¬ 
selves.  They  now  look  through  the  lattice-work, 
and  they  demand  why  Mrs.  Browning  and  Milton 
and  Angelo  are  received,  and  they  shut  out.  Acting 
as  interpreter  of  nature,  I  risk  the  reputation  of 
science  upon  these  propositions,  which  I  read  to  the 
jury,  while  I  ask  you  to  watch  the  faces  of  Pliny 
and  Phocion’s  wife  and  Panthea :  —  , 

1.  General  society  now  is  thought  to  be  lax  in 
regard  to  the  execution  of  the  penalties  of  seduction 
and  adultery. 

2.  If,  however,  a  brother  or  a  husband  detects  a 
leper  in  either  of  these  crimes,  and  shoots  him  dead, 
not  one  jury  in  ten  will  inflict  any  penalty  upon  the 
outraged  avenger. 

That  is  a  modern  fact,  and  a  pretty  large  one  from 
the  scientific  point  of  view. 

3.  Social  life  and  law  thus  proclaim  their  opinion 
that  death  should  be  the  penalty  of  seduction  and 
adultery. 

4.  This  penalty  was  actually  required  by  the 
Puritan  civil  enactments. 

5.  If  modern  law  is  more  lax,  the  rule  of  excusing 
private  revenge  justifies  the  principle  involved  in  the 
Puritan  legislation. 

6.  Great  Nature  speaks  in  all  this  volcanic  justifi¬ 
cation  of  purity. 


162 


MARRIAGE. 


These  men  at  the  lattice-work  have  been  guilty  of 
the  things  for  which,  when  avenged,  murder  itself  is 
condoned.  Both  of  them  have  been  guilty.  Pliny’s 
face  is  that  of  nature ;  it  has  in  it  only  manliness. 
Panthea’s  face  is  that  of  Nature ;  it  has  in  it  only 
womanliness.  But  under  the  rays  of  the  eyes  of* 
these  two  representatives  of  Paganism,  Goethe’s  eyes 
go  down,  and  Byron’s  quail.  You  know  that  that  is 
the  way  these  forces  are  balanced. 

You  are  yourselves  a  part  of  this  jury.  You  are 
the  hosts  in  this  villa.  I  venture  to  affirm  that  the 
free  leper’s  theories  cannot  begin  a  detected  execu¬ 
tion  of  themselves,  in  practice,  without  the  risk  of 
his  being  shot  dead  by  many  a  man  here  and  many  a 

Ik 

woman. 

T.  There  is  nothing  which  quails  so  quickly  before 
outraged  purity  as  outraging  impurity. 

Whoever  knew  a  man  guilty,  as  these  petitioners 
at  the  lattice-work  have  been,  that  could  meet  the 
eyes  of  a  Milton,  or  an  Angelo,  or  a  Mrs.  Browning  ? 
Undoubtedly,  if  persons  far  their  inferiors  in  intellec¬ 
tual  power  stand  up  for  the  heart  of  great  Nature  in 
their  presence,  the  former  can  be  cowed.  But  other 
things  being  equal,  who  ever  saw  an  adulterer,  or  a 
seducer,  that  could  look  into  the  face  of  a  man  his 
equal  in  other  respects  and  pure,  and  not  quail? 
That  is  the  scale  in  which  Nature  weighs  men. 
Whoever  thinks  it  safe  to  stand  in  the  lighter  scale 
to  be  weighed  by  the  judgment  of  ages  to  come,  had 
better  look  backward,  and  see  how  every  great  repu¬ 
tation  that  has  had  this  infamy  in  it  has  little  by 


LOVE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


163 


little  lost  its  place.  We  were  reading  Byron  a  few 
years  ago  as  if  he  were  inspired.  Woman  is  giving 
the  world  a  new  literature.  Mrs.  Browning  is  here, 
and  knows  how  poetry  has  been  purified*  Where 
will  be  the  place  for  the  Byrons  a  century  hence? 
The  trend  of  the  central  currents  of  literature  prophe¬ 
sies  a  better  social  world  than  any  in  the  past. 
These  experiences  of  Angelo  and  Milton  and  Mrs. 
Browning  indicate  what  the  race  is  capable  of,  and 
what  is  the  best  possible  to  man.  Ultimately  you 
will  find  the  race  pressing  toward  the  best  possible. 

We  are  very  careless  when  we  allow  social  lepers 
to  use  sacred  words  to  cover  infamous  things. 
“  Love  !  ”  Pliny  says,  rising  here.  “  These  men 
have  not  loved.  Did  not  poor,  guileless  Margaret, 
in  Faust,  written  by  this  Goethe  beyond  the  Alps, 
stand  up  and  look  upon  the  forehead  of  Mephis- 
topheles,  and  say,  4  It  is  written  on  his  brow  that  he 
never  loved  a  living  soul  ’  ?  This  which  is  true  of 
Mephistopheles  is  true  of  all  his  children.  The 
lepers’  league  of  cancer-planters  !  Neither  he  nor 
they  ever  loved  a  human  soul.  Let  us  not  call  a 
free-fancier’s  contract,  marriage.  All  accepted  defi¬ 
nitions  make  marriage  a  union  of  one  man  and 
woman  for  life.  It  is  mischievous  to  allow  the 
friends  of  loose  divorce  to  call  by  the  sacred  name 
of  marriage,  what,  correctly  described,  is  only  a  free- 
fancier’s  contract,  or  free  leper’s  contract.  Free 
lover !  Free  leper  is  the  better  name.”  [A  voice, 
“  Amen.”  Applause.] 

In  Pliny’s  countenance  there  is  a  thought  which 


164 


MARRIAGE. 


we  must  interpret,  though  he  cannot  whisper  it. 
Pliny  is  instructed  in  modern  investigations.  He 
lifts  up  before  his  jury,  though  he  cannot  open  the 
books,  the  suggestive  name  of  Acton,  who  says  that 
no  man  can  claim  that  Nature  forced  him  into  vice. 
He  lifts  up  here  Bourgeois,  laureate  of  the  Academy 
of  Medicine  of  Paris,  and  might  cite  a  score  of  names 
proclaiming  that  Goethe  and  Byron,  when  they  as¬ 
sert  that  Nature  is  on  their  side,  go  beyond  the  dic¬ 
tates  of  modern  science.  He  quotes  Max  Simon, 
Duffieux,  Diday,  Mayer,  Briguet,  and  Fredault,  all 
Frenchmen  and  men  of  science  writing  in  the  heart 
of  Paris  against  all  the  excuses  of  Sardanapalus. 

The  jury  are  now  agreed.  I  do  not  find  that  Pliny 
and  Panthea  and  Cornelia  and  Phocion’s  wife  and 
Hampden  are  unworthy  to  receive  Milton  and  Angelo 
and  Mrs.  Browning  as  guests.  While  the  high  greet¬ 
ings  pass  between  these  elect  souls  in  Pliny’s  villa, 
how  shall  we  interpret  the  secret  thoughts  which 
flame  in  the  sacred  lights  in  all  their  countenances  ? 
Thomas  Carlyle’s  words  shall  close  my  plea  to  this 
jury :  — 

“  To  burn  away,  in  mad  waste,  the  divine  aromas  and  plainly 
celestial  elements  from  our  existence ;  to  change  our  holy  of 
holies  into  a  place  of  riot ;  to  make  the  soul  itself  hard,  im¬ 
pious,  barren  !  Surely  a  day  is  coming  when  it  will  be  known 
again  what  virtue  is  in  purity  and  continence  of  life ;  how  di¬ 
vine  is  the  blush  of  young  human  cheeks ;  how  high,  benefi¬ 
cent,  sternly  inexorable  if  forgotten,  is  the  duty  laid,  not  on 
women  only,  but  on  every  creature,  in  regard  to  these  particu¬ 
lars  !  Well,  if  such  a  day  never  come  again,  then  I  perceive 
much  else  will  never  come.  Magnanimity  and  depth  of  insight 


LOYE  WITHOUT  MARRIAGE. 


165 


will  never  come ;  heroic  purity  of  heart  and  of  eye ;  noble 
pious  valor,  to  amend  us  and  the  age  of  bronze  and  lacker,  how 
can  they  ever  come?  The  scandalous  bronze-lacker  age  of 
hungry  animalisms,  spiritual  impotencies  and  mendacities,  will 
have  to  run  its  course  till  Pit  swallow  it.”  (Carlyle,  History 
of  Frederick  II.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  29,  30.) 

Goethe  and  Byron  have  slunk  out  of  sight  before 
the  face  of  Carlyle.  [Applause.] 


VII 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES;  OR,  WHO  SHOULD 

MARRY  WHOM  ? 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  SEVENTH  LECTURE  IN  THE 
BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  APRIL  1. 


In  that  great  square  of  the  Santissima, 

There  drifted  past  him  (scarcely  marked  enough 
To  move  his  comfortable  island-scorn), 

A  train  of  priestly  banners,  cross  and  psalm. 

The  white-veiled  rose-crowned  maidens  holding  up 
Tall  tapers,  weighty  for  such  mists,  aslant 
To  the  blue  luminous  tremor  of  the  air, 

And  letting  drop  the  white  wax  as  they  went 
To  eat  the  bishop’s  wafer  at  the  church  ; 

From  which  long  trail  of  chanting  priests  and  girls 
A  face  flashed  like  a  cymbal  on  his  face, 

And  shook  with  silent  clangor  brain  and  heart, 
Transfiguring  him  to  music.  Thus,  even  thus 
He  too  received  his  sacramental  gift 
With  eucharistic  meanings  ;  for  he  loved. 

Mrs.  Browning  :  Avrora  Leigh . 


He  is  the  half  part  of  a  blessed  man 
Left  to  be  finished  by  such  as  she  ; 

And  she  a  fair  divided  excellence, 

Whose  fulness  of  perfection  lies  in  him. 

Shakspkare  :  King  John ,  Act  II.,  Scene  II. 


VII. 

ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES;  OR,  WHO 
SHOULD  MARRY  WHOM? 

PRELUDE  ON  CUKRENT  EVENTS. 

While  we  recognize  the  fact  that  the  sword  is 
sheathed,  and  that  the  bayonet  has  gone  back  to  the 
armory,  let  us  remember  that  the  only  salvation  now 
for  the  South  is  the  uprooting  of  the  spirit  of  caste, 
and  the  opening  to  the  black  man  as  well  to  the  white 
any  career  for  which  he  possesses  or  may  acquire  fit¬ 
ness.  Why  does  not  the  South  see  that  in  holding 
down  one  class  of  her  population,  and  refusing  it 
opportunities  of  education,  which  she  is  so  willing  to 
give  generously  to  the  white  race,  she  is  repressing 
emigration?  The  Upper  Mississippi  Valley  is  begin¬ 
ning  to  send  in  large  numbers  a  new  population  into 
Northern  Texas.  They  very  soon  will  be  clamoring 
for  admission  into  the  Union  as  a  separate  State. 
The  North  can  easily  have  a  swarm  of  colonies  of  its 
own  in  the  South.  Where  are  our  land-ownership 
committees  ?  Where  are  the  American  Hengist  and 
Horsa  to  lead  the  perishing  and  dangerous  classes 
out  of  Northern  cities  into  unoccupied  land  ?  Is  not 

169 


V* 


170 


MARRIAGE. 


the  South  as  attractive  as  the  West  *  for  coloniza¬ 
tion?  Where  are  the  manufacturers  of  the  South? 
Where  are  the  people  who  should  fill  her  rivers  and 
her  mountain-sides  with  industries  more  fruitful  of 
wealth  and  more  stimulative  to  patriotism  than  any 
work  into  which  she  has  hitherto  entered?  The 
flaming  heart  of  the  South  does  not  know  how  it 
might  draw  the  world  to  itself,  and  prosperity  to  now 
desolate  quarters,  if  only  it  would  adopt  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  its  own  Washington,  and  guard  the  rights 
which  the  sword  of  the  United  States  has  perma¬ 
nently  established  in  law,  and  discussion  will  see 
executed  in  practice,  and  give  everywhere  to  talent, 
under  a  black  skin  or  white,  what  Napoleon  called 
free  course.  [Applause.] 

Four  large  portents  hang  over  the  Southern  hori¬ 
zon,  —  two  of  them  cheerful,  two  of  them  threaten¬ 
ing. 

The  cheerful  portents  are  :  — 

1.  Peace  for  both  the  white  and  the  black  race ;  and, 

2.  Education  for  the  whites. 

The  threatening  portents  are  :  — 

1.  An  attack  on  the  common-school  system  by  a 
determined  minority,  influenced  chiefly  by  race  preju¬ 
dice  and  proclaiming  its  unwillingness  to  employ 
State  funds  to  support  high  schools  for  freedmen. 

2.  A  swarm  of  bills  at  Washington  for  the  payment 
of  Southern  war  debts  by  Congress. 

On  the  lower  courses  of  the  Brazos,  the  Red  River, 
and  the  Mississippi,  and  in  the  middle  regions  of  . 
Alabama,  Georgia,  the  Carolinas,  and  Virginia,  the 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


171 


census  maps  of  illiteracy  show  dark  shadows.  The 
contrast  of  these  quarters  with  the  white  spaces  of 
New  England,  New  York,  Ohio,  Michigan,  Illinois, 
Wisconsin,  and  Iowa  is  one  of  the  most  impressive 
passages  in  the  great  pictured  poem  of  the  national 
Statistical  Atlas.  (See  Walker’s  Statistical  Atlas 
of  the  United  States,  compiled  under  the  authority 
of  Congress.)  It  is  a  highly  suggestive  fact,  how¬ 
ever,  that  the  South  claims  that  it  has  a  greater 
number  of  pupils  in  classical,  professional,  and  tech¬ 
nical  schools  than  New  England  in  proportion  to  its 
population.  In  the  six  New  England  States  there  is 
a  white  population  of  3,455,000.  In  Tennessee,  Ala¬ 
bama,  Georgia,  Louisiana,  South  Carolina,  and  North 
Carolina  there  is  a  white  population  of  3,476,000. 
But,  although  possessing  nearly  the  same  number  of 
inhabitants,  this  group  of  Northern  States  has  only 
23,000  pupils  in  classical,  professional,  and  technical 
schools,  while  the  Southern  group  has  47,000,  or 
more  than  twice  as  many. 

Of  course  I  recollect  the  fact,  which  can  hardly 
be  whispered  here  without  a  certain  infelicity,  espe¬ 
cially  as  Boston  has  no  reputation  for  humility,  that 
New  England  schools  are  not  as  easily  called  profes¬ 
sional,  and  classical,  and  technical,  as  some  in  the 
Western  and  in  the  Southern  States.  If  we  were 
to  diminish  the  list  of  institutions  bearing  these 
titles  in  Tennessee,  by  applying  to  their  classification 
the  stern  rules  adopted  by  the  census-takers  in  New 
England,  because  adopted  here  by  her  population, 
the  contrast  might  not  be  so  wide  between  the  num* 


172 


MAURI  AGE. 


ber  of  pupils  in  such  institutions  in  the  South  and  in 
similar  schools  in  New  England. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  beyond  all  question  that  the 
white  population  of  the  Southern  States  has  always 
been  willing  to  pay  well  for  high  schools  for  the 
whites.  However  much  illiteracy  may  exist  in  the 
masses  of  the  average  population  at  the  South,  public 
funds  have  always  been  spent  freely  there  for  the 
higher  education  of  the  ruling  class. 

In  a  paper  read  before  the  scientific  conference  at 
Saratoga  last  summer,  a  Southern  scholar  makes  a 
plea  for  the  lower,  but  indirectly  and  cautiously 
against  the  higher,  education  of  the  freedmen.  On 
his  authority,  and  on  that  of  a  large  mass  of  South¬ 
ern  evidence  which  has  come  before  me  from  other 
sources,  it  appears,  — 

1.  That  the  freedmen  are  now  demanding  high 
schools  wherever  such  schools  are  provided  for  the 
whites ; 

2.  That  a  vigilant  minority  are  eager  to  destroy 
the  entire  system  of  public  instruction ; 

8.  That  opposition  to  public  instruction  in  the 
South  prevails  mostly  in  country  districts,  where  the 
school  system  is  inefficient ; 

4.  That,  as  the  opposition  to  the  free-school  sys¬ 
tem  in  the  South  is  due  principally  to  the  presence 
of  the  freedman,  so  the  objections  advanced  derive 
their  influence  chiefly  from  race  prejudice  ; 

5.  That  instruction  unsuived  to  the  condition  of 
the  race  only  strengthens  the  opposition  to  their 
education.  \Journal  of  Social  Science ,  containing  the 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


173 


Transactions  of  the  American  Association.  No.  IX., 
January,  1878.  Paper  on  “The  Opposition  in  the 
South  to  the  Free-School  System,”  pp.  92-100.) 

So  speaks  Gen.  Logan  of  Richmond,  Va.,  before 
the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science.  Even  in  that  presence,  he  does  not  forget 
the  word  caste.  “  As  the  freedman,”'  continues  this 
authority,  “raises,  his  position  in  the  industrial 
scale,  —  thus  further  relieving  the  whites  from  the 
lower  grades  of  labor ,  —  the  average  occupation  of  the 
white  race  will  be  higher  in  proportion.  And  thus 
the  whites  constituting  the  upper,  the  blacks  the 
lower,  social  strata,  the  white  strata  might  be  ele¬ 
vated  by  raising  the  colored  strata  below  ”  (p.  97). 
“  Practically  there  are  two  classes  in  the  South,  as 
clearly  defined  as  if  established  and  rigidly  preserved 
*>y  caste  laws.  The  whites,  in  effect,  constitute  an 
upper  caste,  without  the  existence  of  laws  giving 
caste  privilege,  while  race  prejudice  prevents  amal¬ 
gamation  and  preserves  the  class  separation  into  two 
distinct  social  strata  ”  (p.  96). 

A  block  of  black  marble,  a  block  of  white !  They 
lie  on  the  earth,  the  white  upon  the  black.  The 
best  argument  of  the  friends  of  the  freedmen  in  the 
South  now  is,  that,  if  you  raise  the  block  of  black 
marble  above  the  mire,  you  will  lift  the  white  into 
greater  prominence.  The  North  had  an  opinion  in 
the  civil  w*ar  that  blocks  of  marble,  black  and  white, 
should  not  be  built  on  each  other,  but  on  their  ends, 
each  upon  the  earth,  and  each  allowed  to  take  the 
height  God  gave  it.  [Applause.]  Raise  the  black 


174 


MARRIAGE. 


marble  and  you  will  raise  the  white  !  This  is  an  ar¬ 
gument  which  can  be  addressed  with  effect  only  to  a 
society  saturated  with  the  spirit  of  caste.  The  belief 
in  the  ethnological  inferiority  of  the  black  man 
insists  that  he  shall  be  subjected  to  an  educational 
inferiority  in  the  opportunities  afforded  him  for  self- 
improvement. 

It  is  proclaimed  that  the  unwillingness  of  a  black 
man  educated  at  a  high  school  to  accept  manual 
labor,  is  a  sufficient  reason  why  a  higher  education 
should  not  be  provided  for  freedmen  by  the  State. 
Does  this  unwillingness  arise  from  a  high-school 
education,  or  in  large  part  from  the  contagious  ex¬ 
ample  of  traditional  and  fashionable  unwillingness 
of  the  same  sort  among  educated  and  even  unedu¬ 
cated  Southern  whites  ? 

That  the  better  educated  of  the  freedmen  are  as 
anxious  as  the  better  educated  of  the  whites  to  be 
relieved  of  the  lower  grades  of  manual  labor,  is  the 
fact  which  excites  the  greatest  alarm  as  to  the  future 
of  the  free-school  system  of  the  South. 

The  anxiety  of  the  black  man  for  relief  from  man¬ 
ual  labor  will  continue  as  long  as  a  similar  anxiety 
is  a  fashion  with  the  white  society  in  which  he  is 
educated.  The  uneducated  white  man  is  no  more 
to  be  excused  from  manual  labor  than  the  unedu¬ 
cated  black  man. 

The  spirit  of  caste,  and  not  the  high-school  system, 
is  what  needs  change  in  the  South.  There  is  a  por¬ 
tion  of  the  North  only  too  much  under  the  power  of 
a  spirit  of  caste  as  to  the  freedman’s  minor  social 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


175 


rights,  although  here  his  educational  and  political 
rights  are  conceded. 

If  the  anxiety  of  the  educated  freedman  to  avoid 
the  lower  grades  of  labor  is  such  a  sin  that  the  State 
should  break  up  his  common  schools,  or,  at  least, 
deprive  him  of  higher  education,  why  is  not  a  similar 
anxiety  to  be  ranked  as  a  similar  sin  and  a  reason  for 
a  similar  deprivation  on  the  part  of  the  uneducated 
poor  white  ? 

Political  rights  have  been  made  equal  in  spite  of 
color.  Let  educational  rights  be  made  equal  also. 
Let  a  career  be  open  to  talent  in  the  black  popula¬ 
tion  as  well  as  in  the  white. 

In  these  positions  I  am  only  supporting  what  I 
suppose  to  be  a  majority  in  the  South  against  an 
active  minority  there.  The  rural  populations  of 
portions  of  the  South  clamor  for  the  abolition  of 
public  instruction  of  blacks  in  the  primary  schools, 
and  especially  in  high  schools.  The  cities  do  not  do 
this.  I  am  not  criticising  the  higher  portions  of 
Southern  society ;  but  in  the  rural  districts,  sparsely 
populated  and  filled  with  wide  plantations,  poor 
teachers  are  often  found  in  the  Southern  public 
schools.  The  instruction  given  in  the  freedman’s 
lonely  schoolhouse  at  the  edge  of  the  Dismal  Swamp 
amounts  to  little.  It  suffers  by  comparison  with 
that  given  in  villages  and  cities.  There  is  a  penuri¬ 
ous  diminution  of  teachers’  salaries  in  the  South,  as 
well  as  in  the  North. 

The  paring  down  of  salaries  in  public  schools, 
sends,  of  course,  the  best  teachers  to  the  rich,  who 


176 


MARRIAGE. 


can  pay  well  for  good  instruction  in  private  schools. 
As  William  Cullen  Bryant  has  said,  if  we  reduce  the 
salaries  of  our  teachers  below  a  certain  point,  the 
result  is  sure  to  be  the  turning  of  all  good  instruc¬ 
tion  into  rich  society.  Those  who  can  pay  well  for 
excellent  teachers  will  have  them,  and  the  poor  man 
will  be  left  without  adequate  instruction.  The  dif¬ 
ference  between  the  rich  and  poor  will  grow  wider 
and  deeper  by  all  penuriousness  in  regard  to  school 
salaries. 

In  the  South,  in  the  rural  districts,  geographical 
reasons  cause  even  good  teachers  to  be  sometimes 
inefficient,  and  there  is  a  clamor  against  common 
schools,  when  serious  attempt  is  made  to  give  in¬ 
struction  to  white  and  black  children  under  one 
roof.  Indeed,  government  has  given  up  trying  to 
mass  together  the  children  in  these  sparsely  popu¬ 
lated  districts.  If  we  had  endeavored  to  mass  the 
two  classes,  we  should  probably  have  broken  up 
the  entire  system  of  governmental  instruction  in 
the  South. 

Northern  sentiment,  in  favor  of  equal  educational 
rights  for  the  black  and  white  race,  is  called  on  now 
to  put  itself  side  by  side  with  the  better  sentiment 
of  the  South  itself,  or  with  the  higher  opinions  of 
the  cities  and  large  towns,  and  against  the  pinched 
ideas  of  the  sparsely  populated  rural  Southern  dis¬ 
tricts.  This  clamor  for  the  putting  down  of  higher 
education  for  the  blacks  ought  to  be  met  with  stern 
criticism.  So  ought  the  action  of  South  Carolina  — 
of  which  I  have  all  the  details  before  me  —  in  redu- 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


177 


cing  disastrously  her  appropriations  for  the  common- 
school  funds.  There  are  two  parties  on  this  topic 
in  the  States  on  the  Gulf.  Southern  taxation  for 
colored  schools  amounts  to  eight  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  Georgia  has  for  years  appropriated  eight 
thousand  dollars  to  the  negro  university  at  Atlanta, 
and  Virginia  ten  thousand  dollars  to  the  Hampton 
Institute,  both  of  them  officered  and  controlled  by 
Northern  teachers,  and  filled  with  students,  all  of 
whom  vote  in  opposition  to  the  party  that  aids  their 
education.  It  was  my  fortune  on  this  platform  some 
time  ago  to  call  attention  to  what  is  yet  the  fact, 
that  Northern  support  is  indispensable  to  Southern 
colleges  for  freedmen.  A  significant  number  of  let¬ 
ters  from  teachers  of  the  Southern  schools  for  the 
colored  race  has  reached  me,  with  thanks  for  all  that 
was  said  here  on  their  behalf.  But  the  Secretary  of 
State  in  Mississippi  writes  that  he  has  no  evidence 
that  more  than  one  schoolhouse  used  by  the  freed- 
men  wasvburned  in  Mississippi.  It  is  important  not 
to  overlook  the  circumstance,  on  which  Gen.  Arm¬ 
strong  has  lately  insisted,  that  teachers  of  colored 
schools  are  often  sustained  largely  by  ex-rebel  offi¬ 
cers  and  soldiers.  Of  the  hundreds  of  applications 
for  teachers  which  he  has  had  in  the  past  seven 
years,  nineteen  out  of  twenty  have  come  from  that 
class,  with  offers  of  salaries  in  all  cases.  I  find  that 
the  State  of  Virginia,  staggering  under  her  enor¬ 
mous  debt,  appropriates  three  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  for  maintaining  eleven  hundred 
colored  schools,  and  two  hundred  and  eighty  thou- 


178 


MARRIAGE. 


sand  dollars  of  this  sum  comes  from  the  pockets 
of  her  impoverished  and  war-peeled  white  citizens. 
(. Letter  from  the  Rev.  J.  W.  Pratt,  D.D.,  President 
of  the  Central  University  of  Kentucky.)  Let  not 
the  North  diminish  her  vigilance  and  liberality  as  to 
the  education  of  freedmen.  But  let  us  not-underrate 
the  vigor  of  the  better  Southern  sentiment  as  it  sup¬ 
ports  the  same  sacred  cause. 

This  determined  minority,  which  would  break  up 
all  governmental  instruction,  and  which  assails  the 
high  schools,  has  only  too  much  support  from  cer¬ 
tain  parties  in  the  North,  who  would  pare  down 
teachers’  salaries,  and  have  already  attacked  the  high 
schools  even  here  in  Massachusetts.  This  attack  on 
the  high-school  system  is  by  no  means  exclusively  a 
Southern  matter.  In  the  South  it  is  connected  with 
prejudices  arising  from  caste,  and  may  easily  become 
a  most  mischievous  influence  in  the  North  from  the 
re-enforcements  which  class-prejudices  will  give  to 
the  wave  in  the  South.  Such  is,  I  suppose,  the  most 
threatening  of  the  clouds  lying  along  the  Southern 
sky. 

What  patriot  likes  the  looks  of  the  more  than  two 
hundred  and  fifty  bills  lately  introduced  into  our  house 
of  misrepresentatives  for  the  payment  of  Southern 
war  debts?  James  Russell  Lowell  called  the  United 
States,  years  ago,  what,  since  the  passage  of  the 
-  Silver  Bill,  they  are,  and  what  they  will  be  doubly 
if  they  pay  Southern  debts  incurred  for  the  demoli¬ 
tion  of  the  LTnion,  —  “the  land  of  broken  promise.” 

But  while  there  are  fears  there  are  also  exhilarate 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


1T9 


ing  hopes.  When  in  the  history  of  the  world  have 
we  seen  a  great  population,  after  protracted  war, 
brought  so  soon  to  at  least  outward  loyalty  ?  A 
prominent  Northern  lecturer,  returned  from  large 
travel  and  a  considerable  residence  in  the  South, 
affirms  that  you  cannot  eulogize  the  Union  any¬ 
where  on  the  platform  south  of  the  Potomac  with¬ 
out  bringing  out  the  cheers  of  the  audience.  To 
outward  appearance  there  is  as  little  need  of  Federal 
soldiers  in  New  Orleans  as  in  Boston.  The  persons 
who  from  the  heart  of  the  President’s  own  party 
make  political  war  on  the  Executive  of  the  United 
States  are  reaching  the  conclusion  at  last  that  it  is 
the  better  part  of  valor  to  retire  from  their  attack 
upon  his  Southern  policy,  to  which  Massachusetts 
has  in  substance  given  approval  from  the  first.  I 
am  not  here  assailing  any  man’s  political  prejudices, 
but  I  think  it  high  time  that  we  should  learn  that 
the  war  is  over.  [Applause.] 

“  Like  to  a  mustard-seed  God’s  kingdom  grows  ; 

And  high  and  higher  yet  this  portion  towers, 

This  province  of  his  realm,  this  land  of  ours! 

For  think  you  to  its  North  and  West  there  flows 
The  sap  of  all  God’s  purpose  ?  Or  suppose 

The  South  shall,  stayed  from  growth,  forever  wilt, 

While  West  and  North,  bough-bent  with  fruit  and  flowers, 
Shall  flourish  on  its  halted  life  upbuilt? 

Not  so  ;  henceforth  and  purged  its  tropic  blood 
Shall  flow  as  hot,  but  with  the  health  of  law ; 

And  so  this  many-petaled  plant  shall  draw 
East,  West,  South,  North,  an  even  masterhood  : 

In  fruitfulness  for  all,  each  State  the  chief ; 

Earth’s  grandest  growth,  and  green  in  every  leaf.” 

Author  ofu  Col.  Dunwoddie 


180 


MARRIAGE. 


THE  LECTURE. 

The  celebrated  Frenchman  Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre 
once  visited  a  friend  who  had  a  sister  greatly  ad¬ 
mired  in  society,  but  whom  he  had  never  previously 
seen.  “  Shall  I  tell  you,”  said  the  author  of  “  Paul 
and  Virginia  ”  to  this  tall,  blonde  lady,  of  slow  move¬ 
ments,  of  flaxen  hair  and  blue  eyes,  u  which  one  of 
your  many  admirers  finds  the  most  favor  with  your¬ 
self?”  The  maiden  blushed;  but,  knowing  that  St. 
Pierre  was  without  information  as  to  her  social  circle, 
gave  him  opportunity  to  answer  his  own  question. 
“  He  whom  you  most  admire,”  was  the  reply,  “  is  a 
brunette,  active,  of  quick  movements,  your  opposite, 
with  dark  hair  and  dark  eyes.”  The  maiden  turned 
to  her  brother  with  a  look  of  rage,  and  said,  “  Why 
did  you  reveal  my  secret?”  But  the  man  of  science 
and  letters  replied,  uNo  revelation  was  made  to  me 
except  through  my  knowledge  of  elective  affinities.” 

You  say  that  the  topic  I  am  to  present  this  morn¬ 
ing  is  one  of  the  most  explosive,  dangerous,  and 
infernal  that  could  possibly  be  brought  forward  here. 
For  that  reason  I  like  to  take  it  up.  [Applause.] 
It  is  one  object  of  discussion  here  to  examine  freely 
difficulties  which  cannot  very  well  be  brought  before 
the  people  on  the  Sabbath  days.  The  explosive  force 
of  many  themes,  when  their  discussion  is  .avoided  by 
'the  friends  of  sound  thought,  is  used  with  all  the 
more  effect  on  the  side  of  evil.  If  it  can  be  shown 
that  the  terrific  power  which  lies  behind  some  of 
these  so-called  affinities,  through  which  the  black 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


181 


angels  lead  so  many  men  and  women  into  destruc¬ 
tion,  may  be  employed  on  the  side  of  virtue,  perhaps 
as  much  danger  is  avoided  as  incurred  by  not  skip¬ 
ping  the  topic. 

Even  Goethe’s  book  entitled  “Elective  Affinities” 
is  not  a  plea  for  easy  divorce.  It  is  a  record  of  his 
own  experience.  Every  one  remembers  that  when 
far  advanced  in  life  he  had  a  fancy,  I  do  not  say  love, 
for  Mina  von  Herzlieb,  a  marvellous  creature  in  a 
friend’s  family  at  Jena.  Goethe  was  a  great  fancier 
rather  than  a  lover.  I  doubt  whether  he  was  ever 
in  love ;  he  was  an  immense  fancier.  It  was  only 
when  Mina  was  sent  away  out  of  Goethe’s  circles  to 
school  that  he  obtained  the  power  of  self-control. 
Had  that  measure  not  been  taken,  his  friends  think 
that  disaster  might  have  been  the  consequence. 
Goethe  has  assured  us  that,  in  his  book  entitled 
“  Elective  Affinities,”  he  records  his  own  experi¬ 
ences.  He  does  not  say  in  what  case,  but  every¬ 
body  knows  that  by  the  character  called  “  Edward,” 
in  this  celebrated  work  of  fiction,  Goethe  represents 
the  impulsive  side  of  his  own  nature ;  and  by  the 
character  called  the  “  Captain,”  the  calmer  philoso¬ 
phic  portion  of  his  own  being. 

Notice  what  a  writer  of  fiction  or  drama  makes 
you  love  if  you  would  know  what  he  intends  to 
teach.  I  can  only  speak  from  personal  experi¬ 
ences  ;  but,  for  one,  I  come  out  of  the  heart  of 
Goethe’s  volume  on  marriage  with  a  respect  for  the 
conservative  characters  delineated  there,  and  with 
an  admiration  for  their  philosophy,  but  with  distrust 


182 


MARRIAGE. 


of  the  justifier  of  fancy,  and  the  apologist  of  loose 
opinions.  I  have  an  interest  in  Edward,  but  no 
respect  for  him.  Ottilie,  at  the  last,  the  person  to 
whom  Edward,  in  spite  of  a  previous  marriage, 
was  inclined  to  marry  himself,  retains  the  respect 
of  the  reader,  and  even  of  the  author,  only  by  re¬ 
nouncing  utterly  every  opportunity  that  might  have 
led  to  such  a  marriage.  She  forgives  herself,  and 
has  dignity  in  life  and  peace  in  death  only  on 
that  condition.  Charlotte  in  the  secret  tempest  of 
her  spirit  kneels  down  in  solitude  in  the  night,  and 
surrenders  utterly  to  conscience,  and  at  the  instant 
of  this  act,  Goethe  says,  attained  peace  of  soul. 

In  passage  after  passage  of  his  best  productions 
Goethe  seems  to  behold  the  moral  law  in  its  majesty. 
He  sees  that  it  has  lawful,  because  natural,  authority 
over  the  most  powerful  passions,  and  that  in  the  last 
analysis  we  must  give  conscience  supremacy  even 
over  that  affection  which  is  said  to  have  more  might 
than  death.  But  he  does  not  always  appear  to 
love  the  moral  law.  Closing  the  “  Elective  Affini¬ 
ties  ”  in  the  middle  of  New  Hampshire,  as  my 
railway  car  rolled  under  Moosilauke,  I  happened 
to  glance  up  at  the  mountain  height  just  after  a  glo¬ 
rious  sunset  had  completely  left  the  western  clouds. 
There  was  majesty  in  the  elevation.  I  felt  overawed, 
but  not  attracted  as  I  had  been  when  the  colors  stood 
above  it.  A  mighty  mountain  height,  with  a  cold  sky 
behind  it,  symbolizes  Goethe.  In  Richter  you  see 
the  same  mountain  with  the  morning  radiance  and 
color  behind  its  summits.  There  is  all  the  majesty  of 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


183 


the  moral  law,  all  the  elevation  of  the  mountain,  and 
beyond  it  you  have  the  roseate  tints  of  the  coming 
day.  Richter  is  glad  that  this  majesty  should  be  hon¬ 
ored.  Open  the  New  Testament,  and  you  find  in  the 
sky  behind  the  mountain,  not  merely  roseate  clouds, 
but  the  rejoicing  and  overpowering  effulgence  of  the 
sun  itself.  Indeed,  I  suppose  that  my  criticism  of 
Goethe  must  amount  simply  to  the  utterance  of  the 
word  coldness.  There  is  no  passion  in  him  in  favor 
of  the  moral  law  in  marriage.  There  is  no  rising  sun 
in  him,  there  are  no  sunrise  tints,  there  is  only  a 
leaden,  cold  sky ;  but  there  is  enough  reverence  of 
the  majesty  of  natural  law,  there  is  enough  of  the 
mountain  height  to  make  his  Alpine  scenery  impres¬ 
sive,  even  if  not  alluring.  The  most  explosive  opin¬ 
ions,  of  which  he  felt  the  power,  and  which  he  has 
himself  discussed,  he  condemns  by  making  his  reader 
on  the  whole  prefer  their  opposites.  The  book  is  a 
cold  one.  It  does  not  command  the  soul’s  reverence 
as  does  Richter’s,  or  Mrs.  Browning’s,  or  Tennyson’s, 
or  Carlyle’s  roseate,  high,  entrancing  dawn.  It  does 
not  prompt  one  to  rejoicing  as  do  the  beams  of  the 
morning  shot  through  the  earth,  and  filling  it  with 
gladness.  But  Goethe  himself  acknowledged  in 
practice  the  authority  of  opinions  which  he  is  often 
supposed  to  have  rejected.  He  refused  to  allow  his 
own  name  to  be  dishonored  by  any  yielding  to  what 
he  calls  the  almost  omnipotent  force  of  elective  affin¬ 
ities.  Who  Goethe  was  you  know.  He  is  not  here 
in  Pliny’s  villa,  because  he  was  what  he  was. 

If  elective  affinities  have  power  to  dissolve  mar- 


184 


MARRIAGE. 


riage,  ought  they  not  to  have  power  to  cement  mar¬ 
riage  ?  If  the  explosive  force  of  affinities  be  such  as 
to  wreck  many  a  marriage,  ought  not  that  force, 
enlisted  on  the  right  *side,  to  be  as  efficient  in  con¬ 
struction  as  it  is  in  destruction  ?  How  difficult  this 
topic  is  no  man  knows  until  he  has  brooded  over  it 
years  and  years ;  perhaps  no  man  knows  until  he  has 
passed  through  experiences  like  Goethe’s.  Although 
the  married  two  in  Goethe’s  book  have  friendship  for 
each  other,  yet,  when  a  real  love  springs  up  with 
each  for  another,  there  is  no  peace  except  the  one 
party  to  it  is  in  the  presence  of  the  other.  There  is 
perfect  quiet  of  heart,  there  is  exaltation  of  soul, 
whenever  the  supreme  affection  is  gratified  only  by 
conversation,  or  by  the  ordinary  social  intercourse  of 
cultivated  society.  But  even  that  cannot  be  lawfully 
granted,  and  this  explosive  power  rends  the  castle  of 
the  home,  from  turret  to  foundation-stone.  I  find 
Goethe  narrating,  with  none  too  much  detail,  the 
circumstances  that  show  the  power  of  elective  affini¬ 
ties.  I  thank  God  for  every  word  literature,  or  even 
erratic  discussion,  has  given  us  to  show  how  powerful 
these  forces  are.  I  want  no  diminution  of  the  vivid¬ 
ness  of  the  light  which  comes  to  us  through  science 
itself,  to  prove  that  a  supreme  affection,  founded  on 
affinity  of  soul,  is,  next  to  the  moral  law  in  the  Uni¬ 
verse,  the  most  powerful  of  all  the  influences  felt  by 
human  nature.  Call  that  power  stronger  than  death. 
Let  it  rise  in  all  its  majesty  to  the  heights  of  a  moun¬ 
tain  range.  Science  puts  behind  that  majesty,  not 
only  the  dawn  and  the  cold  sky,  but  the  colors  of 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


185 


morning.  Watch  these  long  enough,  and  there  will 
shoot  from  behind  that  very  height  the  sunrise  at 
last,  and  you  will  love  the  mountain  all  the  more  for 
its  height  when  once  it  is  deluged  by  the  direct 
beams  of  da}^ 

I  plunge  now  into  a  sea  of  difficulties,  too  deep, 
you  may  think,  for  our  venturing  into  it ;  and  I  shall 
ask  you  not  to  regard  the  discussion  as  really  com¬ 
menced  until  it  is  closed. 

1.  The  word  “  temperament  ”  is  to  be  defined.  It 
is  a  very  vague  term,  and  has  been  employed  most 
loosely,  even  by  respectable  writers.  For  the  pur¬ 
poses  of  this  discussion,  you  will  understand  me  to 
mean  by  “  temperament  ”  the  physical,  mental,  and 
moral  result  of  the  predominance  in  size  and  activity 
of  any  one  class  of  the  physical  organs  over  the  rest. 
A  man  may  have  a  cephalic,  a  thoracic,  or  a  muscular 
temperament,  according  as  the  head  or  chest  or 
muscles  may  predominate  in  size  and  activity  over 
the  other  portions  of  the  physical  system. 

2.  To  use  as  nearly  accepted  phraseology  as  possi¬ 
ble,  or  that  which  is  employed  by  Carpenter,  Draper, 
and  many  physiologists  of  good  position,  there  may 
be  a  predominance  of  the  nervous,  or  of  the  muscu¬ 
lar,  or  of  the  arterial,  or  of  the  lymphatic  apparatus 
over  the  other  apparatus  of  the  body. 

3.  These  different  forms  of  predominance  produce 
results  which  are  called  the  nervous,  bilious,  san¬ 
guine,  and  lymphatic  temperaments. 

Do  not  think  that  I  insist  upon  careful  definitions 
of  these  latter  phrases.  I  have  defined  only  the 


186 


MARRIAGE. 


word  “temperament.”  I  have  not  undertaken  to  de¬ 
fine  the  double  appellation,  “nervous  temperament.” 
We  know  it  at  sight,  perhaps,  but  it  is  very  difficult 
to  describe  it  in  language ;  and  so  of  each  of  the 
other  temperaments.  Of  course,  there  are  not  only 
four,  but  eight,  and  sixteen,  and  thirty-two  tempera¬ 
ments,  according  as  the  four  and  their  derivatives 
are  mixed  with  each  other. 

4.  The  ideal  condition  of  the  body  is,  however,  a 
balance  of  all  its  apparatus ;  and  hence  the  ideal 
temperament  is  the  balanced  temperament,  combin¬ 
ing  the  lymphatic,  the  sanguine,  the  bilious,  and  the 
nervous. 

5.  Nature  ever  strives  to  realize  this  ideal,  that  is, 
to  produce  the  perfect  temperament,  which  holds  all 
the  organs  in  equilibrium. 

6.  Hence,  because  seeking  the  perfection  of  all  the 
faculties  which  are  called  human,  because  seeking 
the  ideal  condition  represented  by  an  equilibrium, 
she  instils  in  the  nervous  temperament  a  preference 
for  the  lymphatic ;  and  in  the  sanguine,  a  liking  for 
the  bilious  constitution ;  in  opposite,  for  opposite ;  in 
any  temperament,  a  liking  for  that  which  comple¬ 
ments  or  supplements  it;  and  this  on  the  law  that 
she  seeks  an  equilibrium,  or  the  perfection  of  the 
entire  set  of  faculties,  physical  and  spiritual,  belong¬ 
ing  to  man. 

7.  Elective  affinities  are  tendencies  to  an  equilib¬ 
rium,  or  perfection  of  physical  and  spiritual  qualities. 

8.  Elective  affinities,  therefore,  between  persons 
of  opposite  temperaments,  often  arise  from  physical 
dissimilarity. 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


187 


9.  Between  persons  of  balanced  temperaments 
these  affinities  may  arise  from  similarity. 

10.  Between  persons  of  mixed  temperaments  they 
may  arise  from  both  similarity  and  dissimilarity. 

11.  It  is  sometimes  asserted  that  the  adaptation 
of  two  persons  to  marriage  consists  in  their  mental 
and  moral  similarity  and  their  physical  dissimilarity. 
This  is  a  useful  but  an  inexact  statement. 

12.  It  follows  from  the  definition  of  elective  affini¬ 
ties  as  tendencies  to  an  equilibrium,  or  perfection  in 
all  the  human  qualities,  that  the  adaptation  of  two 
persons  to  marriage  —  here  is  another  definition  — - 
consists  in  their  possession  of  physical  and  mental 
traits  which  make  equilibrium  or  perfection  when 
matched.  The  good  traits  which  the  one  does  not 
possess  should  be  found  in  the  other;  but,  if  the 
same  good  traits  are  possessed  by  both,  the  parallel¬ 
ism  is  not  an  inadaptation,  but  an  attraction,  so  far 
as  it  tends  to  produce  an  equilibrium  or  perfection 
of  all  the  faculties,  physical  and  spiritual. 

13.  The  existence  of  mental  and  moral  adaptation, 
as  thus  defined,  is  capable  of  ascertainment  by 
science  and  social  experience. 

14.  Marriages  without  such  adaptation  must,  in 
the  face  of  the  scientific  method,  whatever  fashion 
may  say  to  the  contrary,  be  proclaimed  to  be,  not 
only  mistakes  under,  but  crimes  against  natural  law, 
and  ought,  therefore,  to  be  regarded  as  crimes  against 
social  law. 

15.  All  social  customs  which  make  marriage  a  lot¬ 
tery  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  ascertaining  the 


188 


MAERIAGE. 


truth  as  to  the  existence  of  this  adaptation,  are  con¬ 
demned  by  the  immeasurable  mischief  to  which  they 
necessarily  lead. 

In  Goethe’s  book  we  have  a  marriage  of  friend¬ 
ship,  following  a  marriage  of  convenience  in  the 
experience  of  each  of  the  principal  characters.  Seve¬ 
ral  kinds  of  marriage  are  discussed  in  that  volume, 
but  the  solution  of  the  knot  which  choked  Edward 
is,  I  believe,  nowhere  frankly  given.  Goethe  did  not 
proclaim  that ,  instead  of  making  an  ex  post  facto 
affinity  law  for  those  who  would  cancel  their  mar¬ 
riage ,  there  should  be  made  an  anticipatory  affinity 
law  with  the  same  provisions  for  those  who  are  about 
to  contract  marriage.  Does  the  clamor  for  loose 
divorce  laws  bring  before  us  the  infelicities  of  ill- 
assorted  unions  ?  The  more  that  topic  is  discussed, 
the  better.  The  forces  which  make  marriages 
unhappy  are  adequate  to  make  marriages  happy. 
The  more  you  clamor  for  an  inadmissible  ex  post  facto 
law  in  these  cases,  the  more  reason  I  see  for  men 
and  women  exercising  caution  before  they  cause 
themselves  to  need  an  ex  post  facto  law. 

16.  The  existence  of  this  adaptation  is  best  proved 
by  the  existence  of  an  adequately  tested  supreme 
affection. 

Here,  then,  we  unite  the  present  course  of  thought 
with  the  past  discussion  of  the  topic  of  marriage. 
Thus  far  I  have  been  endeavoring  to  show  that  an 
adequately  tested  supreme  affection  should  be  the 
basis  of  every  marriage,  but  now  we  come  face  to 
face  with  a  central  question :  — 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


189 


IT.  What  are  adequate  tests  of  the  existence  of  a 
supreme  affection? 

Assuredly,  this  is  as  practical  an  inquiry  as  can  be 
raised  on  the  topic,  especially  for  those  who  are  yet 
to  have  experience  on  this  theme.  I  would  put  aside 
here  all  unscientific  sensitiveness.  I  would  face  the 
holy  of  holies  of  society,  however,  with  a  becoming 
awe.  If  I  were  not  in  the  presence  of  this  Pagan 
jury  in  Pliny’s  villa ;  if  there  were  not  here  Cornelia 
and  Phocion’s  wife  and  Panthea,  as  well  as  Mrs. 
Browning ;  if  I  could  not  gaze  into  the  countenances 
of  Hampden  and  Michel  Angelo  and  Milton,  as  well 
as  into  that  of  Pliny,  I  might  be  unwilling  to  insist 
upon  some  of  these  tests.  But  when  I  conjoin  the  ful¬ 
ness  of  life  in  modern  time  with  the  best  elevation  of 
it  in  antiquity,  and  when  I  take  into  view  the  human 
faculties  in  their  whole  natural  range,  assuredly  the 
majority  of  these  tests  can  be  insisted  on  in  the  name 
of  experience.  There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun. 
When  these  tests  are  read,  Cornelia  bows  her  head ; 
so  does  Phocion’s  wife;  so  does  Panthea.  Every  one 
of  the  tests  they  are  willing  to  apply  to  their  own 
supreme  affections.  Watch  this  Pagan  jury  for  the 
verdict  of  nature  as  to  what  are  adequate  tests  of 
the  existence  of  a  supreme  affection.  Let  me  read 
ten.  I  do  not  presume  to  say  that  these  are  all,  but 
these  are  some  of  the  tests  which  should  be  applied 
by  every  person  who  is  to  enter  into  an  arrangement 
that  law  and  custom  make  indissoluble.  Among 
the  tests  which  can  be  called  adequate  as  to  the 
existence  of  a  supreme  affection  are  these  :  — 


190 


MARRIAGE. 


(1)  Willingness  to  renew  an  engagement  if  it  be 
supposed  to  be  broken  off. 

(2)  Unforced  tendency  to  form  a  resolution  never 
to  belong  to  another. 

We  must  make  a  distinction  between  fancy  and 
love ;  but  one  of  the  most  infamous  things  in  modern 
society  is  a  constant  overriding  of  this  distinction,  — - 
tampering,  dallying,  without  serious  intentions.  I 
have  spoken  of  the  importance  of  opportunities  of 
acquaintance,  such  as  Horace  Bushnell  wanted,  be¬ 
tween  the  marriageable  classes ;  but  you  must  not 
suppose  that  I  am  forgetting  the  wisdom  of  the  usual 
precautions  of  society.  Experience  lies  behind  them. 
If  a  man  cannot  solemnlv,  in  the  court  of  his  inner 
nature,  answer  in  the  affirmative  when  he  is  asked 
whether  these  tests  can  be  borne  successfully  by  his 
alleged  affection,  let  him  remember  that  he  is  young 
yet.  He  needs  guardians.  The  precautions  of  so¬ 
ciety  are  none  too  serious  in  his  case. 

(3)  The  transmutation  of  selfishness  into  delight 
in  self-sacrifice  for  the  person  loved. 

(4)  The  interchange  of  eyes  in  many  moods. 

How  the  poets  have  sung  on  the  great  themes 

suggested  here !  Tennyson  regards  it  as  the  only 
salvation  of  human  life  from  selfishness  to  have  the 

soul  educated  by  a  really  supreme  affection. 

# 

“Love  took  up  the  harp  of  life,  and  smote  on  all  the  chords 
with  might, 

Smote  the  chord  of  self,  which,  trembling,  passed  in  music 
out  of  sight.” 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


191 


In  no  animal  on  the  globe  is  there  the  capacity  to 
have  that  chord  smitten  out  of  sight,  whether  the 
animal  walk  on  four  feet  or  on  two.  The  supreme 
distinction  between  leprosy  and  love,  the  supreme 
contrast  between  that  Urania  who  is  reverenced  in 
the  symposium  of  Plato  as  of  celestial  origin,  and 
that  Polyhymnia,  a  terrestrial  goddess,  who  comes  up 
from  the  clay  and  the  foam  of  the  sea,  is  that  in  the 
heavenly  affection  there  is  a  loss  of  selfishness,  and 
in  the  earthly,  at  the  last  analysis,  the  gratification 
of  self  is  the  supreme  motive.  Murder  lies  close  to 
lust,  because  in  the  latter  there  are  no  forces  which 
can  smite  the  chord  of  self  into  music  or  trembling, 
much  less,  into  invisibility.  Shakspeare  says  of 
two  of  his  characters  that  at  their  first  meeting  they 
changed  eyes.  Perhaps  at  the  second  there  might 
have  been  less  perfect  interchange.  The  changing 
of  eyes  is  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  supreme 
affection,  but  it  must  be  an  interchange  in  many 
moods. 

(5)  The  opinion  of  friends  who  know  the  whole 
case. 

Unwise  parental  interference  is  to  be  denounced ; 
but  wise  is,  of  course,  to  be  praised.  Who  should 
know,  if  parents  do  not,  —  provided  they  are  serious 
students  of  experience,  —  what  may  posssibly  be  the 
outcome  of  years  of  growth  on  both  sides?  Will 
there  be  a  growing  together,  or  a  growing  apart? 
Who  can  answer  that  question  so  well  as  the  persons 
who  have  grown  already  through  similar  experiences, 
and  who  have  sent  down,  by  the  laws  of  hereditary 


192 


MARRIAGE, 


descent,  the  spiritual  and  physical  germs  which  are 
to  grow  ? 

(6)  The  effect  of  absence,  rivalry,  and  time. 

(7)  The  advice  of  science  as  to  mental  and  physi¬ 
cal  adaptation.' 

No  man  should  be  above  giving  himself  informa¬ 
tion  concerning  the  acutest  and  soundest  thought  as 
to  the  family.  There  is  nothing  I  am  so  anxious  to 
have  persons  do  who  are  thrown  into  unrest  by  loose 
theories  of  social  life,  presented  only  too  frequently  in 
modern  times,  as  that  they  should  study  natural  law, 
and  venture  to  obtain  clear  ideas  on  marriage.  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  elective  affinity,  you  say.  It  is,  as 
you  affirm,  one  of  the  most  powerful  forces  known 
toman.  Very  well;  a  marriage  cemented  by  that 
powerful  force  would  be  the  highest  kind  of  mar¬ 
riage,  would  it  not?  You  will,  of  course,  admit  that. 
But  you  want  the  highest  kind  of  marriage  for  your¬ 
self,  do  you  not  ?  Why  allow  a  free-fancier’ s  contract 
to  make  unattainable  any  part  of  the  bliss  that  might 
come  to  you  through  a  perfect  marriage  under  the 
power  of  real  elective  affinity  exercised  on  both 
sides  ?  Take  all  that  you  affirm  as  to  this  force,  and 
use  it  to  give  yourself  caution  in  your  selection. 
Let  there  be  science  in  your  prescience.  Use  all 
your  boasted  light,  lest  its  disuse  blister  your  mem¬ 
ory  by  and  by.  Ascertain,  what  are  the  indications 
of  adaptation  in  marriage.  Some  men  have  gone  so 
far  as  to  proclaim  that  there  ought  to  be  advisory 
boards  on  this  subject.  I  am  not  of  their  opinion ; 
but  there  ought  to  be  advisory  light  on  the  topic 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


193 


filling  all  families,  and  especially  the  giddier  circles 
of  the  young. 

(8)  A  knowledge  of  what  position  in  life  one 
wishes  or  is  likely  to  fill ;  or  a  choice  of  occupation. 

Goethe,  among  those  for  whom  he  had  not  love  but 
fancy,  once  reverenced  greatly  in  the  groves  of  Ses- 
senheim  a  certain  Frederika,  to  whom,  under  other 
circumstances,  he  could  have  proposed  marriage. 
The  record  of  his  life  says,  however,  that  in  the 
groves  of  Sessenheim  she  was  a  wood-nymph,  but  in 
Strasbourg  salons  he  found  that  the  wood-nymph 
•  seemed  a  peasant.  Choose  your  place  in  life  before 
you  choose  a  wife. 

(9)  Assent  of  the  other  powerful  passions. 

Until  you  have  chosen  your  occupation,  there  is  no 

knowing  what  your  most  powferful  passions  may  be. 
Until  you  ascertain  what  the  currents  of  the  ocean 
are  outside  the  Gulf  Stream,  you  are  not  perfectly 
sure  that  they  will  not  interfere  with  the  course  of 
that  stream  itself.  Find  out  which  way  the  trade- 
winds  will  blow ;  ascertain  something  of  the  config¬ 
uration  of  the  great  ocean  of  your  future ;  and  you 
will  know  through  the  assent  of  the  other  powerful 
passions  wdiether  you  may  expect  permanence  in 
what  you  call  a  supreme  affection. 

(10)  Opportunity  to  know  the  worst  of  each  other. 
[Applause.] 

How  long  one  must  wait  for  such  an  opportunity 
in  the  present  evil  world,  let  circumstances  decide. 
But  let  the  experience  of  George  Herbert  in  marry¬ 
ing  after  an  acquaintance  of  three  days  tell  us  how 


194 


MARRIAGE. 


long  it  would  be  necessary  to  wait  in  a  natural,  that 
is,  in  a  conscientious,  faorld.  There  resided  near 
Dauntsey  a  gentleman  named  Danvers,  a  near  kin¬ 
dred  of  Herbert’s  friend,  Lord  Danby.  Mr.  Danvers 
had  a  family  of  nine  daughters,  and  had  often  and 
publicly  expressed  a  wish  that  Herbert  would  marry 
one  of  them,  “but  rather  his  daughter  Jane  than  any 
other,  because  his  daughter  Jane  was  his  favorite 
daughter.”  “  And  he  had  often  said  the  same  to  Mr. 
Herbert  himself ;  and  that  if  he  would  like  her  for  a 
wife,  and  she  him  for  a  husband,  Jane  should  have  a 
double  blessing ;  and  Mr.  Danvers  had  often  said  the  - 
like  to  Jane.”  “This,”  adds  Walton,  the  biogra¬ 
pher  of  Herbert,  “  was  a  fair  preparation  for  a 
marriage ;  but,  alas  !  her  father  died  before  Mr.  Her¬ 
bert’s  retirement  to  Dauntsey;  yet  some  friends  to 
both  parties  procured  their  meeting;  at  which  time 
a  mutual  affection  entered  into  both  of  their  hearts, 
as  a  conqueror  enters  into  a  surprised  city^ ;  and  love 
having  got  such  possession,  governed  and  made  there 
such  laws  and  resolutions  as  neither  party  was  able 
to  resist ;  insomuch  that  she  changed  her  name  into 
Herbert  the  third  day  after  this  first  interview.” 
The  marriage  proved  eminently  happy;  for,  as  Wal¬ 
ton  beautifully  says,  “  the  Eternal  Lover  of  mankind 
made  them  happy  in  each  other’s  mutual  and  equal 
affections  and  compliance;  indeed,  so  happy,  that 
there  never  was  any  opposition  betwixt  them,  unless 
it  was  a  contest  which  should  most  incline  to  a  com¬ 
pliance  with  the  other’s  desires.  And  though  this 


ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 


195 


begot,  and  continued  in  them,  such  a  mutual  love 
and  joy  and  content  as  was  no  way  defective;  yet 
this  'mutual  content  and  love  and  joy  did  receive  a 
daily  augmentation  by  such  daily  obligingness  to 
each  other,  as  still  added  new  affluences  to  the  former 
fulness  of  these  divine  souls,  as  was  only  improvable 
in  heaven,  where  they  now  enjoy  it.” 

18.  Only  those  who  have  for  each  other  an  affec¬ 
tion  which  will  bear  these,  or  equivalent  tests,  are 
authorized  by  natural  law  to  marry. 

19.  Those  whose  affection  will  bear  these  tests 
will  know  the  difference  between  love  and  fancy ;  will 
not  ask  for  opportunities  of  easy  divorce ;  and  will 
not  need  them. 

20.  When  society  and  law  give  warning  that  mar¬ 
riage  is  indissoluble,  and  when  science  proclaims 
that  only  a  union  which  desires  to  be  for  life  is  nat¬ 
ural,  those  who  rush  into  marriages  of  convenience, 
hypocrisy,  and  heedlessness,  and  ascertain  their  mis¬ 
take  afterward,  must  in  justice  be  required  to  bear 
the  weight  of  their  own  folly,  and  not  throw  the  bur¬ 
den  of  it  upon  society.  [Applause.] 

Such  are  the  twenty  propositions,  or  submerged 
stepping-stones,  on  which  I  would  set  foot  in  fording 
any  deep  waters  in  the  central  stream  of  this  topic  of 
Elective  Affinities. 

There  came  to  me  two  days  ago  a  letter  from  a 
public  man,  saying  that  Connecticut  has  repealed,  in 
a  discussion  which  included  the  reading  of  a  part  of 
the  attack  made  on  the  law  here,  the  omnibus  clause 


196 


MARRIAGE. 


in  her  infamous  divorce  enactments,  so  that  on  this 
point  she  stands  clear  from  all  the  charges  we  have 
brought  against  her,  and  not  we  only,  but  natural 
laws.  [Applause.] 


VIII 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEAEE  ON  MAEEIAGE. 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  EIGHTH  LECTURE  IN  THE  BOSTON 
MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  APRIL  8. 


Ich  habe  genossen  das  irdische  Gluck 
Ich  habe  geleht  und  geliebet. 

Schiller  :  Piccol.,  iii. 

Love  of  love,  so  vast  its  grasp, 

Only  God  can  round  it  clasp; 

Only  he  can  still  us  quite, 

Hungering  for  the  Infinite. 


VIII. 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON 
MARRIAGE. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

Thucydides,  a  young  man,  stood  in  the  great 
audiences  at  the  Olympic  Games  of  Greece,  and 
heard  Herodotus  read  his  immortal  narrative.  The 
listener  was  inspired  to  emulate  the  Father  of  His¬ 
tory  in  recording  the  great  deeds  of  his  nation. 
The  Olympic  Games  began  as  a  foot-race.  In  the 
classical  period,  however,  they  always  included  lit¬ 
erary  contests.  The  river  Alpheus  rolls  toward  the 
Adriatic,  out  of  the  sunset  slope  of  the  Pelopon¬ 
nesus;  and  near  this  amber  stream,  on  a  beautiful 
plain  surrounded  by  solemn  groves,  was  erected  a 
temple  resembling  the  Parthenon.  In  it  was  placed 
the  matchless  work  of  Phidias,  representing  the  Olym¬ 
pic  Jove.  The  world  has  not  forgotten  how  the 
games  on  this  plain  ran  through  a  longer  period 
than  that  which  has  passed  since  William  of  Orange 
set  foot  in  England.  Germany  sends  Curtius  to  the 
shore  of  the  Alpheus  to-day  to  uncover  reverently 

the  Olympic  marbles.  There  were  two  hundred 

199 


200 


MAKKIAGE 


and  ninety-three  Olympiads,  and  the  games  occurred 
every  fifth  year.  Ultimately,  although  only  the  Hel¬ 
lenic  race  took  part  in  them  at  first,  the  Roman 
conquerors  were  proud  to  enter  into  the  contests. 
Tiberius  and  Nero  carried  away  crowns  from  the 
Olympic  festivals.  Politics  bowed  at  last  to  the 
desire  to  win  a  Grecian  wreath.  At  the  Olympic 
Games  men  were  crowned  simply  with  sprigs  of  the 
wild-olive  ;  at  the  Pythian  Games,  with  sprays  of 
laurel;  at  the  Nemean,  with  branches  of  ivy;  and  at 
the  Isthmian,  with  twigs  from  the  pine-tree.  These 
crowns  conferred  not  a  few  privileges,  and  consti¬ 
tuted  the  felicity  of  the  highest  literary  and  musi¬ 
cal,  and  sometimes  of  the  best  oratorical,  talent  of 
Greece. 

There  were  literary  conferences  at  the  ancient 
Olympic  Games.  Why  should  there  not  be  in  the 
modern  World’s  Exhibitions?  Such  conferences  are 
now  recommended  to  favorable  consideration  by 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  by  more  than  forty  of  the  fore¬ 
most  men  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  by  Lord 
Dufferin  in  Canada,  by  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London, 
and  by  Lord  Sandon,  Vice-President  of  the  Privy 
Council  of  her  Majesty,  which  has  charge  of  educa¬ 
tion  in  Great  Britain.  Lord  Beaconsfield  has  sent 
to  this  country  a  letter  stating  that  a  plan  for  such 
conferences  has  been  laid  before  the  British  govern¬ 
ment.  Mr.  Gladstone  has  expressed  his  approval  of 
the  conference.  But  the  scheme  originated  with  a 
Boston  scholar,  Dr.  Humphreys,  for  whom  I  ask 
honor  here  this  morning.  [Applause.] 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON  MARRIAGE.  201 


It  is  not  proposed  to  bring  together,  so  far  as  I 
understand  the  project,  other  than  English  speaking 
scholars.  The  hope  is,  that  it  would  not  be  impossi¬ 
ble  to  assemble  a  conference  of  American  scholars 
who  are  going  abroad  to  the  World’s  Exhibition  at 
Paris,  and  English  scholars.  There  is  now  good 
reason  to  anticipate  that  a  cordial  welcome  and  hos¬ 
pitable  entertainment  will  be  offered  the  American 
scholars  by  members  of  her  Majesty’s  government,  by 
the  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  and  by  other  men  eminent 
alike  in  politics  and  literature.  The  Commissioner 
who  has  charge  of  the  American  contributions  to  the 
Parisian  Exhibition  has  issued  a  circular,  in  which  he 
states  that  such  favorable  representations  of  the  read¬ 
iness  of  English  scholars  to  aid  the  enterprise  have 
come  to  him  from  unofficial  sources  in  Great  Britain 
that  he  has  every  reason  to  expect  that,  if  a  commit¬ 
tee  of  consultation  is  appointed  here  among  Amer¬ 
ican  scholars,  there  will  be  a  formal  invitation  sent 
to  them  from  the  scholars  and  literary  men  of  Great 
Britain.  “The  National  Journal  of  Education” 
(March  21,  1878)  suggests  the  immediate  formation 
of  such  a  committee.  Under  date  of  March  5,  Lord 
Beaconsfield  wrote  in  support  of  the  plan  a  letter,  in 
which  he  speaks  with  the  old  scholarly  enthusiasm  of 
Disraeli,  and  shows  that  the  heart  of  the  latter  has 
not  been  quenched  under  the  ermine  of  the  former. 
Professors  Mayer  of  Cambridge,  and  Creighton  of 
Oxford,  are  emphatic  in  praising  the  scheme  ;  and 
so  is  Mr.  Forster,  a  leading  member  of  Parliament, 
well  known  in  the  United  States,  and  a  son-in-law 
of  Dr.  Arnold. 


202 


MARRIAGE. 


International  copyright,  arbitration  between  Eng¬ 
lish-speaking  nations,  a  common  set  of  weights  and 
measures,  common  patent-laws,  a  codification  of  in¬ 
ternational  law,  plans  for  common-school  instruction 
and  university  examinations,  and  a  score  of  other 
important  themes,  might  well  be  discussed  by  such 
a  conference.  In  an  excellent  lecture  by  the  cul¬ 
tured  business  manager  of  one  of  our  newspapers 
(Mr.  E.  F.  Waters,  Lecture  of  April  6,  on  the  Re¬ 
form  of  the  English  Civil  Service,  Advertiser ,  April 
8),  the  question  has  been  raised  in  Boston  whether 
an  American  secretary  ought  to  have  a  place  in 
Congress  from  which  he  could  explain  himself  to 
our  senators  and  representatives  as  a  minister  does 
to  the  House  of  Lords  and  Commons.  We  have 
heard  much  of  late  of  the  possibility  of  arbitration 
being  adopted  as  the  rule  between  all  English-speak¬ 
ing  nations ;  and  so  of  the  growth,  little  by  little,  of 
a  general  alliance  between  all  these  peoples.  What¬ 
ever  topics  might  come  up  at  this  first  conference, 
the  looking  of  scholars  into  each  other’s  faces,  the 
putting  Thucydides  over  against  Herodotus,  would 
be  an  inspiring  matter. 

In  venturing  to  advocate  this  scheme,  I  have  in 
mind,  not  only  what  it  is,  but  what  it  promises.  The 
world  is  likely  to  contain  fewer  and  fewer  foreign 
lands  as  the  ages  progress.  When  by  and  by  a 
World’s  Exhibition  shall  be  brought  together  at 
Berlin,  why  may  there  not  be  an  Olympic  literary 
conference  between  all  the  scholars  of  all  the  na¬ 
tions  and  all  the  languages  represented  in  that  cos- 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEABE  ON  MABBIAGE.  203 


mopolitan  gathering?  A  conference  on  matters  of 
scholarship  and  education  between  representatives 
of  English-speaking  nations  ought  to  be  only  the 
initiation  of  a  new  custom.  The  time  is  surely  not 
very  far  distant  when  at  every  one  of  these  great 
Olympic,  Pythian,  Nemean,  Isthmian  gatherings,  we 
shall  have,  not  contests,  but  conferences,  and  such 
a  gazing  into  each  other’s  faces  by  leaders  in  the 
world’s  education  as  shall  quicken  all  scholarship 
throughout  the  globe. 

A  most  scholarly  Parisian  journal  of  microscopy 
which  I  hold  in  my  hands  contains  an  elaborate  ac¬ 
count  of  microscopical  investigations  conducted  in 
Massachusetts  by  two  of  her  experts,  —  Dr.  Cutter 
of  Cambridge  and  Dr.  Harriman  of  Boston.  These 
gentlemen  have  made  photographs  of  the  healthful 
and  diseased  appearances  of  the  disks  of  the  blood. 
You  know  that  the  blood  is  made  up  of  three  ele¬ 
ments, —  a  thin  fluid,  a  multitude  of  red  disks,  and  a 
few  white  corpuscles.  The  red  disks  and  white  cor¬ 
puscles  of  the  human  blood,  science  has  put  under 
the  microscope,  and  found  that  they  change  their 
shape  in  different  ways  in  different  diseases.  The 
claim  is  now  made  that  the  character  of  certain  dis¬ 
eases  can  be  ascertained  by  a  study  of  the  changes 
which  they  produce  in  the  shape  of  the  blood  cor¬ 
puscles.  The  audience  sees  this  handkerchief  [hold¬ 
ing  up  a  handkerchief  folded  into  a  flattened  ball]. 
Suppose  it  to  be  folded  into  a  round  mass,  or  a  disk 
of  symmetrical  proportions.  Now  suppose  that  there 
shoots  out  of  it  a  root  at  the  lower  part  [changing 


204 


MARRIAGE. 


the  shape  of  the  folded  mass].  The  change  between 
the  round  form  and  that  caudated  form  is  not  greater 
than  certain  diseases  produce  in  the  form  of  the  red 
blood  corpuscle,  and  especially  in  the  white.  This 
Lectureship  has  been  accused  of  taking  facts  at  sec¬ 
ond  hand.  Next  Monday,  at  eleven  o’clock,  the  great 
hall  at  Tremont  Temple  will  be  darkened,  the  best 
microscope  in  Boston  will  be  put  in  that  gallery,  and 
representations  of  these  disks  will  be  thrown  upon  a 
screen  here  by  the  stereopticon.  The  results  of  cer¬ 
tain  recent  Boston  researches,  of  which  this  French 
journal  speaks  so  highly,  you  will  have  an  opportu¬ 
nity  to  see,  the  first  of  all  audiences  in  the  world. 
[Applause.]  The  red  blood  corpuscle,  when  properly 
magnified  and  thrown  upon  the  screen,  will  have  a 
diameter  of  some  ten  or  twelve  feet.  The  gentlemen 
who  have  volunteered  to  assist  the  Lectureship  in 
putting  these  facts  before  the  public  have  given  pro¬ 
longed  and  minute  professional  attention  to  the  mat¬ 
ter,  and  are  commended  in  the  warmest  terms  in  the 
Journal  de  Micrographie  (November,  187T,  pp.  309, 
310),  both  of  them  by  name.  A  large  degree  of  com¬ 
mendation  is  here  given  to  Mr.  Tolies,  our  Boston 
maker  of  microscopes,  who  is  regarded  as  a  child  of 
fortune,  because  he  has  produced  a  one  seventy-fifth 
objective.  Of  this  magnificent  instrument  you  will 
have  opportunity  to  make  an  inspection.  The  photo¬ 
graphs  which  will  be  put  before  you  are  in  large  part 
its  work.  What  may  come  from  the  investigation  of 
the  changes  of  shape  in  the  disks  in  the  blood  I  do 
not  undertake  to  say,  but  this  I  do  know,  that  science 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEAEE  ON  MARRIAGE.  205 


at  the  present  moment  stands  with  hushed  breath  be¬ 
fore  the  question  whether  diseases  can  be  traced  by 
the  changes  they  produce  in  the  shape  of  the  blood 
corpuscles.  The  blood  is  the  life,  we  are  told ;  and 
nearer  and  nearer  investigation  comes  to  the  heart 
of  biology.  Science  can  show  you  the  blood  cor¬ 
puscle  changed  by  diseases  too  infamous  to  be  men¬ 
tioned  from  the  round  to  a  sprouted  shape.  On 
the  topic  of  hereditary  taints  in  blood  you  will 
need  little  eloquence  on  my  part,  after  the  facts  at 
first  hand,  as  ascertained  by  perhaps  the  best  micro¬ 
scope  in  the  world,  have  been  put  before  you,  first  of 
all  audiences  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic.  [Ap¬ 
plause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

The  survival  of  the  least  unfit  will  ultimately  give 
the  world  to  the  fittest. 

When  music  rises  in  a  city  street,  every  man  who 
hears  it  with  his  soul  forgets  the  uncouth  noises  with 
which  it  contends,  and  becomes  in  some  sense  a  poet 
and  a  prophet.  When  we  listen  to  the  melody  of 
what  the  best  writers  say  concerning  woman,  and 
find  that  among  all  the  barbarous  cries  of  time  this 
lofty  anthem  rises  victoriously,  and  is  remembered 
age  after  age,  because  it  possesses  inherent  *  fitness  to 
command,  we  are  made  poets  and  prophets,  and 
naturally  anticipate  a  better  world.  When  I  hear 
great  music,  I  feel  sure  that  the  vexed  centuries  will 
be  put  in  order  at  last.  In  all  noble  melody  there  is 
a  suggestion  of  a  melodious  final  arrangement  of 


206  MARRIAGE. 

human  events.  Goethe  said  that  level  roads  lead  out 
of  music  in  every  direction.  So-  they  do  oufc  of  the 
love  of  love.  The  immense  inspirations  of  woman’s 
character  always  elevate  us,  as  music  does,  to  a 
height  from  which  we  anticipate  better  ages. 

If  I  mistake  not,  the  inculcations  of  the  most 
valued  literature  as  to  woman  and  marriage  have 
been  growing  higher  in  the  last  five  hundred  years. 
If  I  can  show  that  literature  is  singing  a  loftier 
and  more  inspiring  song,  or  presenting  a  higher  and 
higher  ideal  of  excellence  in  woman’s  character  and 
of  what  is  best  in  marriage,  perhaps  you  will  ask 
whether,  under  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
there  is  not  ground  for  hope  that  the  world  will,  by 
and  by,  keep  step  with  its  best  melody.  I  shut 
the  Scriptures  here,  not  because  they  are  underrated, 
and  not  because  it  is  forgotten  for  an  instant  that 
they  have  inspired  this  higher  melody'  of  modern 
literature.  All  my  inquiry  is  included  in  these  two 
questions :  — 

Have  the  ideals  literature  presents  as  to  excellence 
in  woman’s  character,  and  as  to  what  is  best  in  mar¬ 
riage,  risen  in.  the  last  five  hundred  years  ? 

Where  shall  we  find  room  in  social  custom  and  public 
law  for  that  form  of  womanly  character  which  the  most 
enduring  literature  makes  us  love  best? 

1.  The  enduring  literatures  of  the  world  are  ap¬ 
proved  by  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

2.  They  indicate  what  is  natural  to  man. 

3.  What  the  ideals  of  enduring  literatures  teach  as 
to  marriage  is,  therefore,  an  indication  of  what  is 
natural  in  marriage. 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON  MARRIAGE.  207 


4.  The  ideal  of  marriage  and  the  ideal  concerning 
excellence  in  woman’s  character  have  always  risen  or 
fallen  together. 

5.  The  latter  has  risen  with  the  advances  of  mod¬ 
ern  literature. 

6.  Shakspeare  and  Goethe  both  had  unfortunate 
experiences  in  marriage,  and  both  depict  fully  the 
evils  of  ill-assorted  unions. 

7.  Shakspeare  and  Goethe  are  to  be  judged  by 
the  rule,  that  we  are  to  notice  what  an  author  of  fic¬ 
tion  makes  us  love,  if  we  would  know  what  he  intends 
to  teach. 

8.  The  women  whom  Shakspeare  makes  us  love 
are  Helena,  Portia  of  Belmont,  Viola,  Portia  of 
Pome,  Isabella,  Ophelia,  Cordelia,  Miranda,  Hermi- 
one,  Perdita,  Desdemona,  Imogen,  Katharine  of  Ara¬ 
gon,  Juliet. 

9.  It  has  often  been  asserted  that,  next  to  the 
Christian  religion,  humanity  has  no  other  so  precious 
inheritance  as  Shakspeare’s  divine  gallery  of  woman¬ 
hood.  (Hudson,  Gervinus,  Mrs.  Jameson.) 

Were  it  policy  here  to  go  into  unessential  detail,  I 
might  fill  up  an  hour  with  the  illustration  of  that 
single  proposition ;  but  in  this  presence  one  can  put 
foot  only  on  mountain-tops.  The  difference  between 
an  essay  and  an  oration  is,  that  the  essay  goes  into 
the  valley  and  lingers  in  the  nooks  and  corners ;  the 
oration  puts  foot  only  on  summits.  You  never  have 
been  able  here  to  bear  that  I  should  deliver  an  essay. 

10.  But  Goethe,  three  hundred  years  later  than 
Shakspeare,  advances  beyond  even  Shakspeare’s  ideals, 


208 


MARRIAGE. 


by  making  his  best  female  characters  yet  more  thought¬ 
ful,  religious,  far-seeing,  educative,  and  more  nearly 
the  equal  intellectual  companions  of  men.  Natalia 
and  the  Fair  Saint  in  “Wilhelm  Meister’s  Appren¬ 
ticeship  and  Travels  ”  are  loftier,  or  at  least  more  per¬ 
fectly  developed,  female  characters  than  any  which 
Shakspeare  has  drawn. 

Here,  of  course,  I  must  pause  to  justify  these 
propositions  face  to  face  with  the  record  of  these  two 
writers.  I  am  now  answering  the  question,  Who  are 
the  women  that  enduring  literature  makes  us  love 
best?  We  know  what  literature  has  escaped  obliv¬ 
ion  ;  and  the  ideals  of  that  literature  are  surely  a 
phenomenon  on  which  science  ought  to  cast  a  glance. 
If  I  am  to  ascertain  in  what  direction  the  great  gulf- 
current  of  human  aspiration  tends,  show  me  what 
literature  is  selected  out  of  the  mass  which  perishes, 
and  allowed  to  continue  its  power  in  the  world.  This 
Shakspeare,  you  say,  was  a  roisterer.  He  was  the 
master  of  the  amusement  of  the  globe.  Do  you 
think  that  a  free-fancier’s  contract  might  have  pleased 
him,  and  that  he  is  not  to  be  taken  as  an  authority  • 
against  loose  ideas  of  marriage  ?  How  does  he  make 
Juliet  speak  on  the  point  of  a  free-fancier’s  contract? 

“  Oh,  bid  me  leap,  rather  than  marry  Paris, 

From  off  the  battlements  of  yonder  tower; 

Or  walk  in  thievish  ways ;  or  bid  me  lurk 
Where  serpents  are ;  chain  me  with  roaring  bears ; 

Or  shut  me  nightly  in  a  charnel-house, 

O’er-covered  quite  with  dead  men’s  rattling  bones, 

With  reeky  shanks  and  yellow  chapless  skulls; 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON  MARRIAGE.  209 


Or  bid  me  go  into  a  new-made  grave 

And  hide  me  with  a  dead  man  in  his  shroud; 

Things  that,  to  hear  them  told,  have  made  me  tremble ; 
And  I  will  do  it  without  fear  or  doubt, 

To  live  an  unstained  wife  to  my  sweet  love.” 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  act  iv.  sc.  1. 

This  is  the  roisterer  Shakspeare.  This  is  the 
woman  whose  character  he  makes  us  love.  We  must 
suppose  that  he  admired  what  his  subtle  power  over 
dramatic  forms  causes  us  to  admire.  Is  Shakspeare 
to  be  called  on  to  answer  the  question  whether  there 
is  a  difference  between  love  and  fancy  ?  If  a  fancy 
be  coarse,  we  have  a  frank  name  for  it;  if  it  be 
infamous,  we  have  a  yet  franker  name,  which  had 
not  dropped  out  of  use  in  Shakspeare’s  time,  thank 
God  !  It  is  a  great  infelicity  in  the  French  language, 
that  there  are  not  two  words  for  the  activity  of  heav¬ 
enly  passion  and  of  earthy.  It  is  an  infelicity  in  the 
English  language,  that  there  are  two  words  for  the 
two  things,  and  that  we  often  allow  the  white  word 
to  be  used  for  the  black  object.  Shakspeare,  how¬ 
ever,  wishing  to  draw  a  distinction  which  ought  to 
be  burned  into  the  thought  of  civilization,  does  not 
hesitate  to  say,  in  language  more  exact  than  much 
of  ours :  — 

“  Love  comforteth  like  sunshine  after  rain, 

But  lust’s  effect  is  tempest  after  sun ; 

Love’s  gentle  spring  doth  always  fresh  remain ; 

Lust’s  winter  comes  ere  summer  half  be  done ; 

Love  surfeits  not,  lust  like  a  glutton  dies ; 

Love  is  all  truth,  lust  full  of  forged  lies !  ” 

Venus  and  Adonis. 


2.10 


MARRIAGE. 


This  Shakspeare  was  master  of  the  world’s  revels, 
you  said ;  but  in  emphasizing  that  distinction,  he  is 
master  of  the  world’s  social  philosophy.  Turn  back 
from  these  words  of  his  youth  to  a  play  written  in 
his  age,  and  you  find  the  distinction  between  fancy 
and  love  drawn  with  equally  unwavering  lines  :  — 

“  For  several  virtues 
Have  I  liked  several  women  ;  never  any 
With  so  full  soul,  but  some  defect  in  her 
Did  quarrel  with  the  noblest  grace  she  owed 
And  put  it  to  the  foil ;  but  you,  O  you, 

So  perfect  and  so  peerless,  are  created 
Of  every  creature’s  best! 

Do  you  love  me  ?  ” 

The  Tempest ,  act  iii.  sc.  i. 

To  like  and  to  love  are  thus  with  Shakspeare  two 
things.  When  you  insist,  as  he  does,  on  this  distinc¬ 
tion,  you  will  not  be  surprised  to  hear  his  answer  to 
the  question,  whether  love  of  the  genuine  kind  is 
fickle,  or  whether,  when  the  adequate  tests  of  a 
supreme  affection  have  all  been  borne  by  the  passion 
called  supreme,  that  passion  is  likely  to  change. 
This  roisterer,  this  master  of  the  world’s  revels, 
undertakes  to  assure  the  ages  that  love  is  not  fickle, 
if  it  be  worthy  of  that  name :  — 

“  Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true  minds 
Admit  impediments.  Love  is  not  love 
Which  alters  when  it  alteration  finds, 

Or  bends  with  the  remover  to  remove. 

Oh,  no,  it  is  an  ever-fixed  mark 

That  looks  on  tempests  and  is  never  shaken ; 

It  is  the  star  to  every  wandering  bark 

Whose  worth’s  unknown,  although  its  height  be  taken. 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON  MARRIAGE.  211 


Love’s  not  time’s  fool,  though  rosy  lips  and  cheeks 
Within  his  bending  sickle’s  compass  come. 

Love  alters  not  with  his  brief  hours  and  weeks. 

But  bears  it  out  even  to  the  edge  of  doom. 

If  this  be  error  and  upon  me  proved, 

I  never  writ,  nor  no  man  ever  loved.” 

Sonnet  cxvi. 

Did  Goethe  rise  higher  than  that?  Returning 
from  Italy  as  a  young  man,  he  was  refused  admit¬ 
tance  to  Pliny’s  villa  on  terms  of  equality  with 
Milton,  Angelo,  Mrs.  Browning,  Phocion’s  wife,  and 
Panthea.  I  look  into  the  faces  of  my  jury  after  they 
have  heard  these  sublime  passages  from  Shakspeare. 
Although  they  have  no  doubt  that  the  younger 
Goethe  should  have  been  excluded,  they  have  some 
doubt  whether  ’it  would  not  be  injustice  to  exclude 
this  older  and  final  Goethe.  What  did  he  teach  in 
his  age?  Goethe’s  sun  rose  behind  murky  vapors, 
which  steamed  upward,  and  spread  over  Central 
Europe  from  many  a  French  morass  in  the  fashions 
of  court  life.  Far  on  through  his  forenoon  these 
vapors  clung  to  his  chariot.  But  when,  in  his  ad¬ 
vanced  life,  Goethe  neared  the  western  horizon,  and 
came  to  his  last  farewell,  he  hung  there,  like  the 
broad,  trembling  sun  over  the  western  pines,  almost 
cloudless.  He  suffered  much.  That  trembling  light 
of  the  great  disk,  near  its  adieu,  is  to  me  quite  as 
impressive  as  any  thing  that  burst  down  upon  us  from 
out  of  the  period  of  Werther,  or  out  of  the  Italian 
journey,  streaked  through  and  through,  as  I  suppose, 
with  infamy.  Goethe  came  to  the  battle  of  Jena,  and 


212 


MARRIAGE. 


married  the  woman  whose  child  he  had  left  in  Her¬ 
der’s  care  before  his  marriage.  From  the  battle  of 
Jena  on,  Goethe  tried  to  do  his  best  socially.  What¬ 
ever  he  did,  certainly  he  taught  high  things.  I  hold 
in  my  hand  his  latest  German  words,  and  wish  I  had 
time  to  cite  something  adequate  concerning  Natalia 
and  the  Fair  Saint,  and  the  Three  Reverences,  and 
the  style  of  education  which  Natalia  approved. 

Riding  from  our  metropolitan  city  through  the 
highlands  of  the  Hudson,  I  opened  Goethe’s  chapter 
on  “The  Confessions  of  a  Fair  Saint”  ( Wilhelm  Meis- 
ters  Apprenticeship ,  book  vi.).  The  river  gleamed, 
the  Palisades  looked  down  on  me,  the  great  historic 
heights  of  West  Point  flashed  out  in  the  noon  upon 
the  page  I  was  studyiqg.  I  found  the  current  of  the 
river  in  the  book  more  entrancing  than  that  of  the 
river  outside  my  swift  window.  I  did  not  care  to 
see  Storm-King,  or  any  other  height,  for  I  was  pass¬ 
ing,  in  44  The  Confessions  of  a  Fair  Saint,”  for  per¬ 
haps  the  twentieth  time  in  my  reading,  over  Goethe’s 
descriptions  of  those  ranges  of  experience  which  he 
thought  representative  of  the  innermost  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian  life.  Say  Goethe  wrote  that  chapter  as  an  ex¬ 
periment ;  nevertheless,  the  Fair  Saint  is  one  of  his 
ideals.  She  is  an  ideal  female  nature  delineated  in 
detail  on  the  canvas  of  modern  literature  ;  and  the 
character  includes,  as  its  loftiest  virtue,  affectionate 
self-surrender  to  the  moral  law,  or  to  what  Goethe 
does  not  call,  after  Matthew  Arnold’s  style,  44  An 
Invisible  Somewhat,”  but  an  Invisible  Friend,  —  that 
is,  a  Some  One.  Goethe  represents  this  woman  as 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON  MARRIAGE.  213 


surrounded  by  all  the  temptations  of  fashion,  and 
as  moved  by  them,  indeed ;  but  as  little  by  little 
coming  into  such  communion  with  the  Invisible,  that 
she  reached  those  loftier  regions  of  spiritual  delight 
from  which  what  Sardanapalus  calls  pleasure  was 
seen  to  be  unsatisfactory. 

When  once  we  have  tasted  the  fruits  of  the  upper 
Paradise,  the  lower  become  ashes  to  our  lips ;  or  at 
least  they  are  insipid  until  they  are  mingled  with 
those  upper  fruits.  To  change  the  metaphor,  when 
once  we  have  ascertained  how  glorious  the  sunset 
clouds,  if  irradiated  by  the  light  of  sun,  can  be,  we 
shall  understand,  as  never  before,  that  without  the 
light  they  are  only  fog.  Without  lofty  affection, 
without  the  inspiration  of  a  pure  life,  whatever  Sar¬ 
danapalus  most  values  is  not  the  gate  of  the  west 
irradiated  by  the  sunlight  and  made  the  very  en¬ 
trance  to  heaven ;  it  is  vapor  of  the  damp,  dark  sort, 
and  attractive  neither  to  man  nor  animal.  Make  it 
your  business,  as  I  am  obliged  to  make  it  mine,  to 
listen  to  the  subterranean  sounds  in  American  cities, 
and  in  some  of  the  higher  circles  even  of  our  metro¬ 
politan  civilization,  and  you  will  be  forced  to  con¬ 
clude  that  there  are  few  topics  more  needing  to  be 
discussed  than  the  relations  of  science  to  social  law. 
Goethe  represents  his  Fair  Saint  as  ascertaining  early 
the  difference  between  the  light  and  the  fog.  He 
lifts  her  character  slowly  into  the  light,  until  her 
experience  becomes  a  type  of  lofty  religious  culture 
in  woman. 

The  question  is  discussed  in  Goethe’s  account  of 


214 


MARRIAGE. 


his  Fair  Saint,  what  faith  is ;  and  Goethe,  in  his  old 
age,  gives  as  a  definition  very  nearly  what  most 
scholars  here  would  approve.  You  say  he  did  not 
mean  all  this.  You  say  the  account  of  the  Fair 
Saint  was  only  a  sketch  of  fancy.  Well,  it  is  there 
on  Goethe’s  canvas  as  one  of  the  ideals  of  literature 
as  to  excellence  in  woman.  There  is  nothing  as  high 
in  Shakspeare. 

Turn  on  out  of  Meister’s  Apprenticeship  into  Meis- 
ter’s  Travels,  and  enter  that  land  where  Three  Reve¬ 
rences  were  taught.  You  remember  that  Wilhelm, 
giving  an  account  of  his  experience  in  that  country 
to  Natalia,  says  the  children,  when  he  first  saw  them, 
greeted  him  with  three  kinds  of  gestures.  One  set 
of  children  looked  into  the  sky  with  a  cheerful  gaze, 
and  laid  their  arms  crosswise  over  their  breasts. 
Another  set  looked  upon  the  earth  around  them,  and 
had  a  glad  look.  The  eldest  stood  with  a  frank  and 
spirited  air,  their  arms  stretched  downwards,  and 
peered  into  what  was  below  them.  He  asked  for 
an  explanation  of  these  gestures,  and  was  told  that 
looking  into  the  sky  meant  reverence  for  what  is 
above  us;  looking  about  upon  the  world  meant 
reverence  for  what  is  around  us;  and  that  the 
gesture  toward  the  centre  of .  the  earth  meant  rever¬ 
ence  for  what  is  below  us.  Reverence  for  what  is 
above  us, — this  is  the  ethnic  religion.  Reverence 
for  what  is  around  us,  —  this  is  philosophy.  Rever¬ 
ence  for  what  is  below  us,  or,  for  the  unfortunate, 
for  whatever  needs  lifting  up,  for  whatever  deserves 
pity,  that  is  Christianity,  or  the  Worship  of  Sorrow. 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON  MARRIAGE.  215 


Deep  are  these  symbols ;  and  so  Carlyle,  recommend¬ 
ing  Goethe’s  “  Wilhelm  Meister  ”  as  the  book  which 
,  best  unravels  the  problems  of  modern  religious  dis¬ 
cussion,  has  his  eye  always  upon  the  symbols  of  the 
Three  Reverences.  True  religion,  as  Goethe  here 
teaches,  is  a  union  of  all  these  reverences  for  what  is 
above  us,  what  is  around  us,  and  what  is  below  us. 

Wilhelm  is  taken  into  a  symbolical  palace,  and  there 
he  finds  the  religion  of  reverence  for  what  is  above 
us,  symbolized  by  delineations  founded  on  the  Sacred 
Books  of  the  Israelites.  The  events  of  the  New 
Testament  'are  pictured  in  another  gallery,  and  rep¬ 
resent  the  Philosophical  Religion,  or  reverence  for 
what  is  around  us.  But  as  Wilhelm  moves  along 
the  corridors,  he  comes  suddenly  to  a  closed  door. 
“  What  is  beyond  ?  ”  — -  “  All  that  is  in  and  beyond 
the  crucifixion,”  is  the  reply.  “  But  you  will  not 
admit  me  to  that  ?  ”  —  “  No.  We  hold  it  an  accursed 
familiarity  with  sacred-  things,  to  take  men,  before 
they  are  adequately  instructed,  into  the  third  corri¬ 
dor,  which  represents  Reverence  for  what  is  beneath 
us.  This  is  the  Sanctuary  of  Sorrow.”  Goethe, 
then,  in  symbolical  language  speaks  of  one  who  “  in 
no  wise  conceals  his  divine  origin;  dares  to  equal 
himself  with  God ;  and  to  declare  that  he  himself  is 
God.”  Goethe’s  final  religious  belief  stands  sum¬ 
marized  in  the  famous  sentence  which  Carlyle  has 
adopted  as  his  own,  and  to  which  he  has  given  great 
prominence  in  literature,  that  “the  Christian  religion, 
having  once  appeared,  cannot  again  vanish ;  having 
once  assumed  its  divine  shape,  can  be  subject  to 


216 


MARRIAGE. 


no  dissolution.”  (Goethe,  Meister's  Wander jahre, 
Zweites  Buch,  Erstes  Kapitel.  See  Carlyle’s  Trans¬ 
lation,  Collected  Works,  vol.  xxxii.  p.  223.  Also  * 
especially  Carlyle’s  Essay  on  Goethe ,  Works,  vol. 
vi.  p.  283.) 

That  is  the  sun  near  its  last  adieu.  Will  you 
admit  this  Goethe  to  Pliny’s  villa?  Will  you  admit 
this  Goethe,  Pantliea?  Will  you  admit  this  Goethe, 
Phocion’s  wife ?  Will -you  admit  this  Goethe,  Pliny? 
There  is  no  objection ;  and  Goethe,  in  his  age,  has  a 
place  in  Pliny’s  villa.  [Applause.] 

11.  In  the  best  literature  of  the  present  generation, 
especially  in  Mrs.  Browning  and  Tennyson,  the  ideals 
of  Shakspeare  and  Goethe  are  yet  further  empha¬ 
sized  and  heightened. 

12.  The  permanent  place  which  woman  has  won  in 
modern  literature  is  an  assurance  that  these  ideals 
will  not  be  lost  out  of  the  world. 

13.  The  place  she  is  winning  for  her  educational, 

*  industrial,  and  political  rights  is  an  assurance  of  the 

same  kind. 

Do  you  fear  that,  when  you  give  woman  large 
political  rights,  divorces  will  increase  in  number? 
Possibly  they  may.  Even  if  this  occurs,  it  is  likely 
to  be  only  a  temporary  effect.  I  have  caused  the 
records  of  Massachusetts  for  fifty  years  to  be  ex¬ 
amined,  and  I  do  find  that  as  woman’s  general  rights 
have  been  increased  in  this  Commonwealth,  divorces 
have  increased.  Probably  this  is  only  an  ex  post 
facto  effect.  When  by  and  by  woman  has  more 
power  to  choose  her  own  position  in  life,  and  when 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON  MARRIAGE.  217 


at  last  she  attains  capacity  to  support  herself,  per¬ 
haps  there  will  be  fewer  marriages  of  convenience 
and  hypocrisy.  [Applause.]  Then  there  will  be 
fewer  divorces.  Ultimately,  therefore,  the  widening 
of  woman’s  rights,  within  reasonable  ranges,  may 
diminish,  instead  of  increasing,  the  clamor  for  lax 
divorce  laws.  Let  us  make  a  broad  distinction 
between  woman’s  industrial,  educational,  and  politi¬ 
cal  rights.  I  believe  all  the  scholarship  of  the  world 
is  agreed  that  woman  should  have  what  she  calls  her 
educational  and  industrial  rights.  Let  her  be  edu¬ 
cated  ;  let  her  be  paid  as  much  as  man  for  the  same 
work.  [Applause.]  And  when  her  educational  and 
industrial  rights  have  been  given  her,  let  her  political 
rights  be  determined  by  fair  discussion.  Let  woman’s 
rights  come  to  her,  not  by  revolution,  but  by  evolu¬ 
tion.  [Applause.] 

13.  But  as  ideals  of  womanly  excellence  and  of 
marriage  have  risen,  the  practical  observance  of  those 
ideals  has  risen,  and  is  likely  to  rise. 

14.  It  is  Hegel’s  explanation  of  the  philosophy  of 
history  that  the  ideals  of  the  race  slowly  become 
realities  in  custom  and  law. 

Why  do  we  have  a  revolution  every  now  and 
then  ?  Because  we  know  better  than  previously  how 
to  manage  human  affairs.  We  reach  by  discussion 
and  reflection  a  higher  ideal,  and  then  comes  clamor 
for  the  crystallization  of  the  ideal  into  social  order 
and  public  law. 

15.  Where  is  there  room  for  woman’s  whole  nature, 
as  represented  by  the  ideals  of  the  best  literature  of 


218 


MARRIAGE. 


the  last  five  hundred  years  ?  This  surely  is  the  cen¬ 
tral  inquiry,  and  one  that  science,  strictly  so  called, 
has  a  right  to  raise,  face  to  face  with  these  records 
of  an  increasingly  high  ideal  of  woman’s  excellence. 
What  arrangement  of  social  custom  and  law  will  fit 
these  ideals?  Where  is  there  room  for  Portia  and 
Imogen,  and  the  whole  height  of  Shakspeare’s  ideals 
of  excellence  in  woman  ?  Where  is  there  room  for 
Natalia  and  the  Fair  Saint,  and  all  Goethe’s  ideals 
as  to  woman’s  excellence?  Where  is  there  room 
for  Mrs.  Browning’s  Aurora  Leigh  ? 

16.  Not  in  any  palace  of  Sardanapalus. 

17.  Not  in  any  fre e-fancier’s  contract. 

Let  the  man  who  fancies  marriage  under  a  free 
contract  of  separation ;  let  the  crawling  adder,  who 
hisses  in  the  slime  of  the  pits  of  dissipation,  and 
thinks,  as  he  never  comes  out  to  the  light  of  day, 
that  the  whole  globe  is  only  an  adder’s  nest ;  let  all 
who  have  been  charmed  by  the  hiss  of  such  an  adder 
come  forth  and  gaze  into  the  face  of  Goethe’s  Natalia, 
into  the  face  of  Shakspeare’s  Juliet,  into  the  face  of 
woman’s  excellence  as  delineated  by  the  best  litera¬ 
ture  of  the  last  five  hundred  years.  Is  there  room 
in  the  adder’s  hole  for  these  women  ?  [Applause.] 
That  is  the  central  question  of  science  after  all.  Let 
me  show  you  what  literature  proves  woman’s  nature 
to  be.  In  the  name  of  social  science  I  have  a  right 

O 

to  ask,  where  is  there  room  for  woman’s  whole 
nature  ?  In  no  palace  of  Sardanapalus  is  there 
room  for  Pantliea.  In  no  free-fancier’s  contract  is 
there  room  for  Phocion’s  wife.  In  no  adder-hole  is 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON  MARRIAGE.  219 


there  room  for  Goethe’s  Natalia  and  Shakspeare’s 
Portia  and  Mrs.  Browning’s  Aurora  Leigh.  Do  you 
say  that  these  are  modern  ideals,  and  the  result 
of  a  little  stress  put  into  social  law  by  Christianity  ? 
There  has  not  been  a  sufficiently  long  test  of  Chris¬ 
tian  ideals,  jmu  affirm,  to  make  it  sure  that  they  are 
natural.  Go  back  to  Hector  and  Andromache  if  you 
must  have  older  literature  than  any  I  have  cited. 
Really  there  is  not  room  in  the  adder’s  hole  for 
Andromache. 

Go  back,  if  you  will,  to  Plato’s  symposium,  which 
is  sometimes  attacked  for  its  low  ideal  of  woman. 
Understand  the  production,  and  then  ask  where  there 
is  room  for  the  ideal  of  womanly  excellence  there 
depicted.  I  have  stood  on  the  cathedral  of  Milan, 
and  gazed  at  Mont  Blanc.  Around  me  were  the 
humble  shops  of  the  Italians,  and  from  among  them 
rose  this  pyramid  of  carved  marble.  Just  so,  out  of 
the  rude  talk  of  Alcibiades  and  the  foolish  chatter  of 
frivolous  guests,  rose  in  the  symposium  of  Plato  the 
form  of  Socrates.  When  you  have  studied  the  con¬ 
versation  you  come  out  of  it  as  one  comes  from  the 
summit  of  Milan  cathedral.  If  you  have  understood 
the  words  of  Socrates  in  the  symposium,  you  have 
heard  the  bells  ring  in  presence  of  the  Alps,  and  have 
been  on  the  turret  nearest  the  sky.  The  contrast 
between  this  turret  and  the  unsightly  structures 
around  the  base  of  the  cathedral  is  the  striking  trait 
in  the  plan  of  the  temple  which  we  call  the  sympo¬ 
sium.  Socrates,  however,  is  not  the  loftiest  character. 
He  stands  there  as  the  pupil  of  a  woman,  a  certain 


220 


MARRIAGE. 


Diotima  of  Mantineia,  who  taught  him  the  true  doc¬ 
trine r  concerning  love.  “When  a  man  loves  any 
thing,”  asks  Socrates,  “what  does  he  love?  Some¬ 
thing  which  he  has,  or  something  which  he  has  not?  ” 
—  “  Something  which  he  has  not.”  Question  succeeds 
question,  and,  finally,  the  answer  given  to  the  inquiry 
what  love  is,  affirms  that  love  is  “  the  desire  of  the 
eternal  possession  of  the  good.”  Little  by  little 
the  range  of  thought  is  lifted,  until  Socrates  tells  the 
astonished  audience  what  Diotima,  in  her  final  dis¬ 
courses,  taught  him.  This  is  the  loftiest  idea  of  Pla¬ 
to’s  philosophy.  I  repel  with  indignation  all  attempts 
to  accuse  Plato  of  teaching  low  ideals  in  this  great 
production.  He  means  to  shame  them  by  contrasting 
Socrates  with  the  lower  natures  around  him.  Un¬ 
doubtedly  he  does  not  reprimand,  as  we  should,  some 
of  the  unspeakable  vices  of  the  Greeks.  It  is  amazing 
that  Plato  did  not  feel  that  they  ought  not  to  have 
been  discussed.  Finally  Diotima^tells  Socrates  that 
this  is  the  secret  of  love  :  First  we  are  to  love  one 
beautiful  form,  then  many  beautiful  forms,  then  all 
•  beautiful  forms.  Then,  from  a  love  of  beautiful 
forms,  we  are  to  rise  to  the  love  of  beautiful  prac¬ 
tices.  One  fair  form,  two  fair  forms,  many  fair  forms, 
all  fair  forms,  we  are  to  love ;  and  then  from  fair 
forms  we  are  to  rise  to  the  love  of  fair  practices  ; 
and  from  the  love  of  fair  practices  to  the  love  of  fair 
ideas ;  and  from  the  love  of  fair  ideas  to  the  love  of 
Him  who  thinks  them ;  and  from  that  into  friendship 
with  God.  That  is  love.  [Applause.]  That  is 
woman’s  idea  of  love,  as  presented  by  Plato  and 
by  Socrates. 


GOETHE  AND  SHAKSPEARE  ON  MARRIAGE. 


221 


“  All  things  transitory 
But  as  Symbols  are  sent ; 

Earth’s  insufficiency 
Here  grows  to  Event ; 

The  Indescribable 
Here  it  is  done, 

The  Ever-womanly  leadeth  us 
Upward  and  on.” 

So  Go e the  sings  at  the  conclusion  of  Faust,  and 
the  words  well  fit  the  lips  of  science  face  to  face 
with  Diotima’s  philosophy.  Let  Tennyson  express 
his  best  hope  for  the  future,  and  you  will  find  it  high, 
but  not  so  high  as  Plato’s. 

“  The  woman’s  cause  is  man’s :  they  rise  or  sink 
Together,  dwarfed  or  God-like,  bond  or  free. 

If  she  be  small,  slight-natured,  miserable, 

How  shall  men  grow  ?  but  work  no  more  alone ! 

Let  man  be  more  of  woman,  she  of  man ; 

He  gain  in  sweetness  and  in  moral  height, 

Nor  lose  the  wrestling  thews  that  throw  the  world  ; 

She  mental  breadth,  nor  fail  in  childward  care, 

Nor  lose  the  childlike  in  the  larger  mind  ; 

Till  at  the  last  she  set  herself  to  man, 

Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words ; 

And  so  these  twain,  upon  the  skirts  of  Time, 

Sit  side  by  side,  full-summed  in  all  their  powers, 
Dispensing  harvest,  sowing  the  To-be, 

Self-reverent  each  and  reverencing  each. 

Distinct  in  individualities, 

But  like  each  other,  even  as  those  who  love. 

Then  comes  the  statelier  Eden  back  to  men  ; 

Then  reign  the  world’s  great  bridals,  chaste  and  calm; 
Then  springs  the  crowning  race  of  human  kind. 

May  these  things  be !  ” 


[Applause.] 


Tennyson  :  The  Princess. 


IX. 

INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  NINTH  LECTURE  IN  THE  BOSTON 
MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  APRIL  15. 


The  child  lay  in  Ottilie’s  arms,  and,  as  she  was  looking  affection¬ 
ately  down  at  it,  it  opened  its  eyes,  and  she  was  not  a  little  startled 
when  she  seemed  to  see  her  own  eyes  looking  at  her.  —  Goethe: 
Elective  Affinities,  vii. 


Each  becomes  a  poet  when  Love  touches  him,  though  he  was  not 
musical  before.  —  Plato  :  Symposium,  19. 


IX. 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

At  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  German  Associa¬ 
tion  of  Naturalists  and  Physicians  at  Munich,  Pro¬ 
fessor  Virchow  of  Berlin  University  replied  to  Ernst 
Hackel’s  latest  defence  of  Materialism.  An  author¬ 
ized  copy  of  Virchow’s  celebrated  address  on  this 
occasion  has  been  translated  in  England,  published 
by  Murray,  corrected  by  Virchow  himself,  and  has 
just  reached  this  country.  Germany  has  discussed 
the  collision  of  Virchow  and  Hackel ;  England  begins 
to  discuss  it.  But  the  long  lash  of  criticism  which 
Virchow  is  winding  in  steady  blows  about  the  dimin¬ 
utive  limbs  of  the  small  philosophers  of  advanced 
Darwinism  has  yet  received  far  less  attention  than  it 
deserves  in  America.  I  propose  to  show  to-day  that 
it  is  a  lash  which  really  means  business,  and  within 
its  present  range  is  not  likely  soon  to  cease  to  be 
wielded.  “  The  Popular  Science  Monthly  ”  has,  in¬ 
deed,  published  an  imperfect  report  of  this  great 
address,  but  it  has  failed,  as  has  also  Asa  Gray  of 
Cambridge  (in  an  article  in  the  Independent ),’  to 
bring  out  the  breadth  of  the  collision  between  Vir- 

225 


226 


MARKIAGE. 


chow  and  Hackel.  The  latter  represents  what  is 
called  advanced  Darwinism  or  Monism,  or  material¬ 
istic  as  opposed  to  theistic  views  of  evolution. 

Virchow,  although  holding  to  one  form  of  the 
development  theory,  is  so  conservative  as  to  affirm 
that  no  one  has  the  right  to  teach  that  man  is  derived 
from  the  ape  or  any  other  animal.  He  affirms  that 
the  central  tenet  of  Darwinism  is  as  yet  only  an  hy¬ 
pothesis,  and  that  all  who  teach  it  as  an  established 
fact  are  going  far  beyond  the  permission  of  the  sci¬ 
entific  method.  My  purpose  now  is  to  give  emphasis 
to  the  collision  between  Hackel  and  Virchow,  or  to 
the  conflict  between  materialistic  and  theistic  forms 
of  the  evolution  philosophy. 

Hackel  in  the  first  and  second  sessions  of  this  fifti¬ 
eth  conference  of  the  German  naturalists  maintained 
a  large  number  of  his  characteristic  propositions,  in 
an  address  which  I  may  summarize  fairly  by  these 
statements :  — 

1.  The  Biblical  account  of  the  planet’s  creation 
has  been  demolished  by  geology. 

2.  The  two  principles  of  inheritance  and  adapta¬ 
tion  explain  the  derivation  of  the  manifold  existing 
organisms  from  a  single  cell. 

3.  Were  any  further  argument  needed  to  disprove 
supernatural  intervention,  we  have  only  to  notice 
the  frequent  occurrence  of  undeveloped  and  useless 
organs  in  many  types  of  the  animal  world. 

4.  Perception  and  will  are  possessed  by  primary 
organisms  consisting  of  but  a  single  cell. 

5.  The  cell  consists  of  matter  called  protoplasm, 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


227 


composed  chiefly  of  carbon  with  an  admixture  of 
hydrogen,  oxygen,  nitrogen,  and  sulphur. 

6.  These  elements  properly  united  constitute  the 
body  and  soul  of  the  animal,  and,  suitably  nursed, 
become  man. 

7.  In  this  way  the  Creator  is  disposed  of,  the  mys¬ 
tery  of  the  universe  explained  by  the  mechanical 
theory  of  life,  the  Divinity  annulled,  and  a  new  era 
of  infinite  knowledge  ushered  in. 

8.  These  views  should  be  taught  in  every  school 
in  the  land.  (See  article  in  Quarterly  Review  for 
January,  1878,  on  “  The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Scientific 
Lectures ;  ”  and  also  the  London  Times  of  Nov.  30, 
1877,  on  “  Darwinism  in  Germany.”) 

This  is  the  revolutionary  form  in  which  the  materi¬ 
alistic  or  Hackelian  school  of  evolutionists  presents 
its  conclusions  to  Germany.  These  are  the  views 
which  Virchow  calls  “  wilful  and  despotic.”  These 
are  the  propositions  against  which  Virchow,  in  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  German  naturalists,  lifted  up  his  emphatic 
protest,  —  one  likely  to  be  long  remembered,  for  it  is 
now  proved  to  have  behind  it  the  support  of  the  best 
science  of  Germany.  As  Virchow  himself  says  in 
his  preface  to  the  English  edition  of  his  speech, 
“  With  a  few  individual  exceptions,  this  protest  has 
met  with  cordial  assent  from  German  naturalists. 
They  feel  themselves  set  free  again  from  the  tyranny 
of  dogmatism.” 

But  now,  over  against  these  propositions  of  Hack- 
el’s,  what  are  the  central  propositions  of  Virchow  ?  I 
do  not  follow  his  order  of  statement,  but  of  course 
you  will  expect  me  to  give  exactly  his  language. 


228 


MARRIAGE. 


1.  “As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  must  positively  recognize  that 
there  exists  as  yet  a  sharp  line  of  demarcation  between  man 
and  the  ape.  We  cannot  teach,  we  cannot  pronounce  it  to  be 
a  conquest  of  science,  that  man  descends  from  the  ape  or  from 
any  other  animal.” 

2.  “  As  recently  as  ten  years  ago,  whenever  a  skull  was  found 
in  a  peat-bog,  or  in  pile  dwellings,  or  in  ancient  caves,  people 
fancied  they  saw  in  it  a  wonderful  token  of  an  inferior  state, 
still  quite  undeveloped.  They  smelt  out  the  very  scent  of  the 
ape ;  only  this  has  continually  been  more  and  more  lost.  The 
old  troglodytes,  pile-villagers,  and  bog-people,  prove  to  be  quite 
a  respectable  society.  They  have  heads  so  large  that  many  a 
living  person  would  be  only  too  happy  to  possess  such.” 

3.  “  There  is  something  soothing  in  being  able  to  say  that 
the  group  of  atoms,  Carbon  and  Company  —  (this  phrase  is, 
perhaps,  rather  too  brief,  but  still  correct,  inasmuch  as  carbon  is 
probably  the  essential  element)  — that  this  firm  of  Carbon  and 
Company  has  at  some  time  or  other  dissolved  partnership  from 
the  common  carbon,  and  founded  under  special  conditions  the 
first  plastidule,  and  that  they  still  continue  to  establish  new 
branch  companies.  But  in  opposition  to  this  it  must  be  em¬ 
phatically  stated,  that  all  really  scientific  knowledge  respecting 
the  beginning  of  life  has  followed  a  course  exactly  contrary.” 

4.  “  Whoever  will  have  a  formula ,  whoever  says,  ‘I  have  ab¬ 
solute  need  of  a  formula ;  I  must  make  all  clear  to  myself ;  I 
am  resolved  to  have  a  consistent  view  of  the  universe;  ’  —  he 
must  assume  either  a  generatio  cequivoca  or  creation :  there  remains 
for  him  nothing  else.  If  we  would  speak  frankly,  we  must 
admit  that  naturalists  may  well  have  some  little  sympathy  for 
the  generatio  cequivoca.  If  it  were  capable  of  proof,  it  would 
indeed  be  beautiful !  But,  we  must  acknowledge,  it  has  not 
yet  been  proved.” 

5.  “I  have  no  objection  to  your  saying  that  atoms  of  carbon 
also  possess  mind,  or  that  in  their  connection  with  the  plasti¬ 
dule  company  they  acquire  mind ;  only  I  do  not  know  how  I  am 
to  perceive  this.  It  is  a  mere  playing  with  words.  If  I  explain 
attraction  and  repulsion  as  exhibitions  of  mind,  as  physical 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


229 


phenomena,  I  simply  throw  the  Psyche  out  of  the  window,  and 
the  Psyche  ceases  to  be  Psyche. 

6.  “I  have  all  along  laid  stress  upon  this,  —  that  we  should 
not  seek,  in  the  first  place,  the  transition  of  the  inorganic  into 
the  organic,  but  rather  first  fix  the  contrast  between  the  inor¬ 
ganic  and  the  organic,  and  direct  our  studies  to  this  contrast,  — 
so  do  I  also  maintain  that  this  is  the  only  way  of  progress  ;  and 
1  have  the  firmest  conviction  that  we  shall  make  no  advance, 
unless  we  fix  the  province  of  mental  processes  at  those  limits 
within  which  mental  phenomena  actually  present  themselves 
to  us,  and  unless  we  refrain  from  supposing  mental  phenomena 
where  they  may  indeed  possibly  take  place,  but  where  we  per¬ 
ceive  no  visible ,  audible,  tangible,  in  a  word,  no  sensible  phenom¬ 
ena,  which  could  be  designated  as  intellectual.” 

7.  “  So  long  as  no  one  can  define  for  me  the  properties  of 
carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitrogen  in  such  a  way  that  I 
can  conceive  how  from  the  sum  of  them  a  soul  arises,  so  long 
am  I  unable  to  admit  that  we  should  be  at  all  justified  in  im¬ 
porting  the  ‘plastidulic  soul’  into  the  course  of  our  education, 
or  in  requiring  every  educated  man  to  receive  it  as  scientific 
truth,  so  as  to  argue  from  it  as  a  logical  premise,  and  to  found 
his  whole  view  of  the  world  upon  it.  This  we  really  cannot 
demand.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  of  opinion  that,  before  we  des¬ 
ignate  such  hypotheses  as  the  voice  of  science,  before  we  say, 
‘This  is  modern  science,’  —  we  should  first  have  to  conduct  a 
long  series  of  elaborate  investigations.  We  must  therefore  say 
to  the  teachers  in  schools,  Do  not  teach  it.  We  must  draw  a  strict 
distinction  between  what  we  wish  to  teach,  and  what  we  wish  to  search 
for.” 

8.  “  Whoever  recalls  to  mind  the  lamentable  failure  of  all 
the  attempts  made  recently  to  discover  a  decided  support  for 
the  generatio  cequivoca  in  the  lower  forms  of  transition  from  the 
inorganic  to  the  organic  world,  will  feel  it  doubly  serious  to 
demand  that  this  theory,  so  utterly  discredited,  should  be  in 
any  way  accepted  as  the  basis  of  all  our  views  of  life.  I  may 
assume  that  the  history  of  the  Batliybius  is  pretty  well  known  to  all 
educated  persons :  and  with  the  Batliybius  the  hope  has  once  more 
subsided,  that  the  generatio  cequivoca  may  be  capable  of  proof 


’  280 


MARRIAGE. 


Batliybius  is  spoken  of  as  slightingly  by  Virchow  as 
it  has  been  on  this  platform.  It  was  my  fortune  two 
years  ago  to  recite  here  the  history  of  the  downfall  of 
Huxley’s  and  Hackel’s  Batliybius.  ( Biology ,  Lectures 
I.  and  II.)  It  is  affirmed  by  the  useful  but  crudely 
edited  “  Popular  Science  Monthly  ”  that  Hackel  has 
defended  successfully  the  theory  he  puts  forth  as  to 
this  alleged  life  in  bioplasmic  matter  at  the  bottom 
of  the  sea.  Virchow  does  not  agree  with  this  Amer¬ 
ican  authority.  He  speaks  as  seriously  of  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  the  origin  of  life  as  does  Lionel  Beale  or  Hein¬ 
rich  Frey  or  Hermann  Lotze.  The  central  character 
of  Hackel’s  and  Huxley’s  mistake  as  to  the  Bathy- 
bius  is  being  shown  in  the  course  of  this  discussion. 
Strauss’s  admission  that  miracle  must  have  occurred 
once  at  least  at  the  introduction  of  life,  unless  spon¬ 
taneous  generation  has  occurred,  proceeds  upon  prin¬ 
ciples  to  which  Virchow’s  views  add  commanding 
emphasis. 

Thus  far  extends  the  collision  between  Virchow 
and  Hackel.  But  allow  me  to  close  this  too  rapid 
summary  of  German  news  by  showing  you  the  col¬ 
lision  between  the  highest  authorities  on  philosophy 
and  Virchow.  This  famous  professor  of  Berlin  is  a 
naturalist.  He  concedes  too  much  in  his  attack  on 
Hackel.  He  affirms  by  implication  that  if  spontane¬ 
ous  generation  is  ever  proved,  Hackel  will  be  shown 
to  have  been  right  in  saying  that  a  Creator  is  not 
necessary  to  the  explanation  of  the  universe.  I  hold 
in  my  hand  here  the  best  philosophical  magazine  in 
the  world,  Die  Zeitschrift  fur  Philosophic ,  edited  by 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


231 


Fichte,  Ulrici,  and  Wirth,  and  published  at  Halle.  In 
it  I  find  Virchow’s  address  discussed  at  length,  but 
the  position  is  taken,  as  it  has  been  again  and  again 
on  this  platform,  that,  even  if  you  prove  spontaneous 
generation,  you  do  not  disprove  the  need  of  a  Crea¬ 
tor.  Behind  spontaneous  generation  there  are  curi¬ 
ous  affinities,  chemical  properties,  and  the  ultimate 
constitution  of  matter ;  but  the  question  still  arises, 
Where  did  these  properties  originate?  This  philo¬ 
sophical  journal  (p.  123,  first  number  for  1878) 
affirms  with  justice  :  “  Were  the  organic  derived  from 
the  inorganic,  and  the  mental  from  the  organic,  the 
question  would  always  remain,  Whence  the  Inor¬ 
ganic?”  Affinities  of  matter  explain  all.  Whence 
come  the  affinities  ?  [Applause.]  This  philosophic 
magazine  gives  you  the  right  presentation  of  Vir¬ 
chow’s  propositions.  He  opposes  materialism  with 
entire  success,  but  he  defends  theism  with  a  slight 
unskilfulness.  He  does  not  see  that  atheism  can  be 
answered,  even  if  spontaneous  generation  be  proved. 
But,  putting  together  all  the  German  views,  our 
conclusion  from  the  outlook  all  along  the  Rhine,  the 
Elbe,  and  the  Oder  must  be  that  there  is  not  a  little 
fog  on  the  Thames. 

Virchow,  in  one  of  the  learned  quarterlies  he  edits, 
has  lately  attacked  the  extravagances  of  advanced 
Darwinians  more  vigorously  than  even  in  the  Munich 
address.  He  affirms  that  Hackel  follows  Lamarck 
more  than  Darwin.  He  styles  the  circles  of  materi¬ 
alistic  evolutionists  “  bubble  companies.”  Language 
like  this  from  perhaps  the  foremost  chemist  on  the 
globe  is  a  sign  of  the  times. 


232 


MARRIAGE. 


So  far  as  I  care  to  draw  personal  support  from  this 
news,  I  have  a  right  to  affirm  that  Hackel  has  been 
attacked  here,  as  every  one  knows,  and  for  precisely 
the  things  for  which  Virchow  now  attacks  him.  But 
for  attacking  Hackel,  and  for  opposing  materialistic 
views  of  evolution,  I  have  been  attacked  from  end  to 
end  of  the  land  by  Spencerians,  and  materialistic 
evolutionists,  and  Darwinians  advanced  further  than 
Darwin  himself,  although  my  propositions  were  en¬ 
tirely  parallel  with  those  now  put  forward  by  Vir¬ 
chow.  The  speech  of  the  Berlin  professor  is,  if  you 
please,  called  timely  and  judicious  at  last  by  a  learned 
professor  of  Harvard  yonder,  who  was  slow  to  recog¬ 
nize  the*  soundness  of  similar  opinions  when,  two 
years  ago,  they  were  defended  here.  [Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

Confucius  taught  the  Chinese  to  call  a  child  a 
year  old  on  the  day  of  its  birth.  Plato  represents 
*  every  human  being  as  standing  in  a  winged  chariot 
and  driving  a  black  and  a  white  horse  (. Phcedrus ). 
The  white  is  the  symbol  of  the  moral  emotions  in 
their  just  supremacy ;  the  black  is  animal  passion. 
The  charioteer  has  conscience  and  reason  as  right 
and  left  hands,  which  grasp  the  reins  of  the  bitted 
steeds.  The  immortals,  Plato  says,  drive  white 
horses.  All  mortals  were  once  in  their  train ;  but, 
for  reasons  known  to  the  Supreme  Powers,  human 
souls  sank  into  their  present  low  estate,  and  now 
have  much  trouble  with  their  ill-matched  coursers. 
These  steeds,  according  to  Plato,  come  from  the  pas- 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


233 


tures  of  the  Unseen,  over  which  the  animals  roamed 
before  man’s  birth.  Especially  does  the  black  horse 
love  to  feed  in  that  dark  region  which  lies  between 
this  life  and  the  invisible  world  on  the  side  of  birth. 
He  comes  from  the  nebulous  quarter  where  the  soul 
first  dips  into  matter.  The  white  horse  is  from  the 
loftier  pastures  belonging  to  the  celestial  region. 
The  problem  of  life  is  how  to  drive  the  two  abreast, 
and  up  the  slope  of  the  azure.  While  I  am  of  course 
not  here  to  defend  Plato’s  theory  of  the  pre-existence 
of  souls,  I  am  here  face  to  face  with  the  magnificent 
exhibition  with  which  you  have  been  favored,  to  de¬ 
fend  the  scientific  idea  of  the  pre-existence  of  bodies. 
You  have  seen  the  white  horse  and  the  black;  you 
have  seen  the  chariot-wheels  of  life ;  you  know  what 
disease  can  do  for  the  innermost  ingredients  of  the 
blood;  and  now,  having  had  the  white  courser  and 
the  dark  put  before  you,  the  chariot  of  life  behind 
the  two,  why  will  you  not  allow  me,  in  spite  of  all  the 
sensitiveness  of  delicacy,  to  deal  as  frankly  as  these 
photographs  have  done  with  certain  unspeakabilities 
of  hereditary  descent? 

1.  Minute  alterations  in  the  blood  determine  mi¬ 
nute  alterations  in  local  nutrition.  (Carpenter’s 
Physiology ,  eighth  ed.,  sect.  726.) 

Every  one  has  noticed  in  the  stereopticon  illustra¬ 
tions  of  this  lecture  that  the  blood  consists  of  three 
different  elements ;  a  multitude  of  red  disks,  a  much 
smaller  number  of  white  corpuscles,  and  a  fluid, 
which  when  in  the  veins  we  call  plasma,  and  which 
we  call  the  serum  after  coagulation  has  set  in,  on  the 


234 


MARRIAGE. 


blood  being  removed  from  the  body.  But  for  my 
purpose  it  is  necessary  to  look  a  little  more  narrowly 
into  the  composition  of  this  mysterious  current  of 
the  circulating  fluid.  In  the  blood  of  the  healthful 
man  the  normal  range  of  variation  for  the  principal 
constituents  is  as  follows :  — 


Fibrin . 

Red  corpuscles  .... 
Solids  of  serum  .... 

W  ater . 

(Carpenter’s  Physiology , 


Parts  per  1,000. 

2  to 

110  to  152 
72  to  88 
.  _  760  to  815 

eighth  ed.,  sect.  199.) 


Within  the  limits  of  these  variations,  health,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Dr.  Carpenter,  may  be  preserved ;  but  if 
you  produce  wider  variations  either  way,  if  you 
change  the  proportion  of  these  ingredients,  if  you 
cause  a  deterioration  of  the  quality  in  any  one  of 
these  elements,  disease  is  the  result.  Here  is  a  most 
delicately  balanced  machine ;  this  chariot  of  Plato  is 
wheeled;  and  you  cannot  injure  one  of  its  wheels 
without  injuring  the  opposite  one.  You  cannot 
break  one  of  the  fastenings  by  which  the  coursers 
are  attached  to  the  chariot,  without  giving  increased 
wildness  to  the  coursers.  You  cannot  injure  any 
part  of  their  harness  without  imperilling  the  whole, 
for  no  strap  is  stronger  than  its  weakest  part.  Thus 
it  results  that  minute  alterations  in  the  blood  may 
produce  extraordinary  changes  in  the  whole  system. 

The  effect  of  morbid  alterations  in  the  blood  has 
been  so  brilliantly  illustrated  before  you  by  the  elo¬ 
quent,  original  photographs  of  Dr.  Cutter  and  Dr. 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


235 


Harriman,  to  whom  we  are  so  greatly  indebted  to¬ 
day,  that  I  need  take  no  time  in  reciting  the  facts  of 
research.  Allow  me  to  say,  however,  that  small, 
moving,  thread-like  bodies  have  been  observed  by 
Obermeyer  in  the  blood  of  patients  suffering  from 
fever,  shortly  before  or  during  the  crisis.  ( Central - 
blatt,  1873,  p.  145.)  Their  nature  is  unknown. 

In  the  blood  of  patients  afflicted  with  the  cholera 
Nedvetski  has  seen  exceedingly  minute,  rod-like  bod¬ 
ies,  and  also  moving  particles  apparently  derived 
from  the  white  corpuscles.  (Ibid.,  1872,  p.  234.) 
Nepveu  has  noticed  in  the  blood  of  those  afflicted 
with  erysipelas  similar  minute,  rod-like  bodies.  Riess 
has  observed  granules  in  the  blood  in  scarlet-fever. 
(Reichert’s  Archiv.,  1872,  p.  237.)  There  have 
been  noticed  also  small,  round,  black  bodies  in  the 
blood  in  puerperal  fever,  and  similar  forms  in  diph- 
theritis. 

Great  interest  centres  in  the  theories  regarding  the 
morbid  alterations  of  the  blood.  Dr.  Carpenter,  an 
authority  whom  I  have  before  me,  says  that  a  consid¬ 
erable  importance  attaches  to  the  statement  made  by 
Lostorfer  and  confirmed  by  the  great  histologist 
Strieker,  that  the  blood  of  patients  suffering  from 
the  nameless  disease  —  to  use  a  most  delicate  but 
awful  phrase  by  which  it  is  commonly  designated  — 
can  be  recognized  by  the  presence  of  small,  bright 
bodies,  which  present  various  forms  of  movement,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  week  after  removal  from  the  body 
enlarge,  sprout,  become  marked  with  pits,  and  die. 
Lostorfer’s  statements  are  corroborated  by  the  facts 


286 


MARRIAGE. 


shown  in  the  photographs  exhibited  here  to-day. 
Halford  has  proved  that  there  are  peculiar  nucleated 
cells  in  the  blood  after  snake-bite,  and  he  believes 
these  are  derived  from  germinal  matter  in  the  poison 
of  the  snake,  and  have  grown  at  the  expense  of  the 
blood.  (See  Carpenter,  Physiology ,  note  to  sect. 
204.)  You  stand  hushed  before  the  recital  of  these 
searching  recent  conclusions  of  exact  investigation, 
because  at  last  you  have  fastened  your  attention  on 
the  Holy  of  holies,  to  which  an  outgrown  book,  as 
some  call  it,  the  Bible,  called  your  attention  three 
thousand  years  ago.  “  The  blood  is  the  life.” 

2.  Minute  alterations  in  the  blood,  that  is,  in  the 
quality  or  quantity  of  its  several  ingredients,  are 
produced  by  many  physical  causes.  (Ibid.,  sect. 
208,  204.) 

3.  They  may  be  produced  also  by  purely  mental 
causes.  (Ibid.,  sect.  T21-726.) 

4.  The  white  blood  corpuscles  are  peculiarly  sensi¬ 
tive  to  both  physical  and  mental  influences. 

5.  At  an  early  period  of  development,  before  the 
heart  and  lungs  are  fully  formed,  the  circulating  fluid 
contains  only  white  blood  corpuscles.  (Beale,  Dis¬ 
ease  Germs ,  p.  104.) 

Had  I  time  to  put  before  you  under  the  microscope 
the  tissues  figured  in  the  great  work  of  Lionel 
Beale  on  “  Disease  Germs,”  the  volume  which  I  now 
hold  in  my  hand,  you  would  see  that  all  the  blood 
corpuscles  in  the  young  tissues,  when  the  heart  and 
lungs  are  not  yet  fully  formed,  take  the  carmine 
stain.  This  shows  that  they  are  made  up  of  the 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES.  237 


germinal  matter,  or  bioplasm,  discussed  here  at  such 
length  previously.  It  is  a  very  striking  fact,  the 
proof  of  which  we  owe,  in  large  part,  to  Lionel  Beale, 
that  in  the  early  stage  of  life  the  young  blood  con¬ 
tains  only  white  corpuscles.  These  are  more  sensi¬ 
tive  than  any  other  part  of  the  body  to  the  changes 
produced  by  mental  and  physical  impressions. 

6.  Hence  physical  and  mental  causes  may  exert 
powerful  modifying  influences  at  this  stage  of  the 
life  of  animals,  not  excepting  man. 

There  is  a  mother  at  a  window.  Suddenly  she  sees 
at  another  window  the  sash  fall  upon  the  fingers  of 
her  own  infant.  Three  fingers  drop.  Three  stumps 
are  left.  They  bleed  before  her  eyes.  She  cannot 
assist  the  child.  I  am  telling  a  story  out  of  Dr. 
Carpenter  (. Physiology ,  sect.  724),  and  not  out  of 
the  newspapers.  A  surgeon  is  called  in ;  he  attends 
to  the  infant ;  binds  up  its  wounds,  and  then  turns 
to  the  mother,  who  sits  moaning  and  complaining  of 
a  pain  in  her  fingers.  Within  twenty-four  hours 
three  of  her  fingers,  corresponding  to  those  cut  off 
from  the  hand  of  the  infant,  begin  to  swell,  become 
inflamed,  and  need  to  be  lanced.  They  go  through 
the  whole  process  of  wounds,  although  perfectly  un¬ 
hurt  except  by  imagination.  We  are  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  made.  But  that  infant  was  farther  off 
from  the  mother  than  it  once  was. 

Here  is  a  carpenter  in  a  peasant’s  house,  and  he  is 
set  upon  by  a  soldier.  I  tell  this  story  out  of  Yon 
Amtiion.  (. Die  Ersten  Mutterpflichten  und  die  Erste 
Kindespflege,  See  also  Carpenter,  sect.  723.)  The 


238 


MARRIAGE. 


mother’s  babe  lies  in  the  cradle  playing  during  the 
fight.  It  understands  nothing  of  the  fracas ;  laughs, 
crows,  while  its  father  is  in  the  peril  of  death.  The 
mother  at  first  stands  petrified  with  terror.  At  last 
she  rushes  between  the  combatants,  seizes  the  sword 
of  the  soldier,  and  breaks  it  in  pieces  across  her 
knee.  The  neighbors  rush  in,  take  the  soldier  into 
custody,  and  the  mother,  in  her  excitement,  snatches 
up  her  healthful  child  and  gives  it  natural  food. 
In  five  minutes  the  child  dies  of  poison,  although 
previously  perfectly  well.  What  originated  the 
poison? 

Under  temporary  and  purely  mental  forces,  the 
blood  disks  change,  and  the  secreted  food  of  the 
infant  becomes  poison. 

God  knows  how  the  immaterial  part  of  us  domi¬ 
nates  over  the  flesh,  has  lordship  over  matter,  can 
cut  into  fingers,  can  transmute,  as  Lady  Macbeth 
once  invoked  the  evil  spirits  to  do,  the  sweetness  of 
the  natural  food  of  the  child  into  a  deadly  fluid. 
This  is  not  imagination,  but  established  science.  It 
is  a  cool  statement  of  what,  under  the  influence  of 
powerful  emotion,  may  happen  to  the  natural  food 
of  the  infant.  But  that  child  once  was  more  in 
danger  of  being  poisoned  than  it  was  when  in  its 
cradle.  [Applause.] 

Unspeakable  thoughts  rise  here,  but  we  are  in 
Pliny’s  villa.  Nay,  we  are  on  the  heights  of  the 
Apennines,  with  Michel  Angelo  and  Goethe,  who 
have  walked  forth  together  from  the  villa  to  look  on 
the  earth  and  sky ;  and  the  thoughts  I  have  raised  in 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


239 


your  minds  these  men  dare  to  continue  to  discuss  in 
frank  conversation  with  each  other.  Panthea,  Pho- 
cion’s  wife,  Cornelia,  are  discussing  the  same  topics 
in  one  of  the  chambers  of  the  villa ;  but  Goethe  little 
suspects  that  their  thoughts  are  as  serious  and  in¬ 
cisive  as  his.  We  will  listen  to  the  conversation  of 
this  poet  and  this  sculptor.  There  is  an  east  wind 
resounding  in  the  grove.  A  serene,  solemn  anthem 
fills  the  temple  of  the  Apennine  forest.  It  dies  away 
to  sacred  silence  now,  and  we  hear  Goethe  saying, 
as  he  paces  to  and  fro  with  Angelo  among  the  purple 
trunks  and  on  the  brown  sheddings  of  the  pines : 
“Well-authenticated  cases  are  on  record  in  which 
the  natural  food  of  an  infant  has  been  rendered 
poisonous  by  the  effect  of  fear,  anger,  or  other 
violent  and  painful  emotion,  on  the  part  of  the 
mother.” 

Michel  Angelo  says,  “You  must  not  tell  that  to 
the  world.”  “  Why  not  ?  ”  asks  this  poet,  who  was 
also  a  man  of  science. 

“  You  must  not  tell  that  to  the  world,”  says  An¬ 
gelo  ;  “  you  may  prepare  the  ages  little  by  little  for 
these  topics ;  but  you  must  not  speak  too  frankly  at 
once.”  Goethe  replies,  the  pine  groves  sounding 
over  him  again,  and  the  ocean  waves  of  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean  flashing  in  the  distance  to  the  west,  and  the 
Adriatic  in  the  east :  “  Why  should  not  the  morning 
rise  on  our  suffering  centuries  ?  Why  have  we  not 
the  right,  looking  down  upon  Plato’s  Academy  in 
Greece,  and  upon  that  land*  in  which  it  was  taught 
that  the  blood  is  the  life,  and  that  to  the  third  and 


240 


MARRIAGE. 


fourth  generations  God  visits  the  sins  of  the  fathers 
upon  the  children,”  —  and  here  Goethe’s  voice  rises 
to  the  solemnity  of  the  winds  in  the  pines,  —  “  why 
have  we  not  the  right  to  spread  abroad  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  whatever  God  has  made  important  ?  ” 

7.  Hideous  physical  impressions  on  the  mother  are 
capable  of  producing  deformity  and  monstrosity  in 
the  offspring.  The  keen  sensitiveness  of  the  mother 
to  such  impressions  is  a  teaching  of  ancient,  as  well 
as  of  modern  times. 

8.  It  seems  to  have  been  forgotten  that  the  con¬ 
verse  is  equally  true,  or  that  this  sensitiveness  is 
equal  to  the  creation  of  symmetry  and  beauty. 

9.  Strong  and  persistent  evil  passions  exercised  in 
certain  circumstances  by  the  mother  reproduce  them¬ 
selves  in  the  constitutional  and  unchangeable  tend¬ 
encies  of  offspring. 

10.  The  converse  is  equally  true. 

11.  It  follows  that  a  child  may  be  worse  than  its 
mother. 

12.  It  follows  also  that  a  child  may  be  better. 

18.  The  qualities  actively  exercised  by  the  mother, 
rather  than  those  possessed,  are  those  which  descend 
to  offspring  by  the  laws  of  heredity. 

14.  These  facts  of  biology  make  possible  a  large 
improvement  of  individuals  through  variation  of 
character  induced  by  inherited  educational  forces. 

Goethe  and  Michel  Angelo  pace  to  and  fro,  and 
converse  concerning  the  operation  of  these  laws. 
While  they  are  thus  entering  the  heart  of  nature, 
in  their  grove  on  the  Apennine  heights,  Cornelia, 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES.  241 


Phocion’s  wife,  and  Panthea,  in  the  marble  corridors 
of  the  villa  yonder,  walk  alone,  discussing  these  same 
problems.  “There  was,”  Goethe  says  to  Angelo,  “in 
our  modern  time,  a  Flaxman,  a  boy  who  loved  the 
forms  that  you  have  represented  in  marble ;  and  I 
have  heard  that  his  mother  loved  similar  works  of 
art,  and  occupied  herself  for  months  in  the  study  of 
them,  and  that  she  was  surprised  to  find  her  moods 
reproduced  in  the  organic  constitution  of  her  child.” 
“I  have  read,”  says  Goethe,  “of  a  Kingsley,  whose 
mother  loved  the  scenery  of  one  part  of  green.  Eng¬ 
land,  and  who  was  so  fascinated  by  the  outlook  at 
her  home,  that  she  made  herself  an  artist  in  putting 
upon  canvas  the  outlines  of  the  hills ;  threw  herself 
into  communion  with  nature ;  and  I  am  told,”  con¬ 
tinues  this  poet,  “  that  Charles  Kingsley  had  through¬ 
out  life,  as  an  organic  permanent  passion,  that  which 
was  a  temporary  passion  with  his  mother.” 

“These  are  fearful  facts,”  says  Angelo,  “but  can 
you  prove  that  these  laws  operate  in  men  of  coarser 
organizations  ?  Do  they  rule  in  the  lower  ranks  of 
society?  Can  they  lift,”  asks  Angelo,  kindling,  “the 
lowest  into  something  noble  ?  Can  there  be  such  an 
improvement  in  individuals  that  from  the  angular 
and  coarse  may  rise  the  symmetrical  and  refined  ?  ” 
“Listen,”  says  Goethe,  “and  let  me  imitate  the 
speech  of  the  poor.  I  have  heard  of  an  Irish 
mother  who  had  a  malicious  child  and  a  kind  child.. 
She  was  asked  to  account  for  the  difference  of  dis¬ 
position  between  the  two.  4 1  know  nothing  of  the 
cause,’  she  said,  4  only  this  little  Kate  will  strike  her 


242 


MARRIAGE. 


knife  into  the  shoulder  of  my  little  Mary.  I  know 
nothing  of  the  cause.  The  good  God  gave  me  both 
of  them.  How  should  I  know  the  source  of  her  dis¬ 
position  ?  Look  into  hen  brown  eyes ;  there  is  a  leer 
of  malice  in  them.’  ” 

Goethe  says  he  studied  this  case,  and  finally  the 
poor  Irishwoman  explained  it  unconsciously.  He 
asked  her  a  question,  —  “Were  you  happy  in  the 
summer  and  winter  and  spring  before  this  child’s 
first  summer?”  —  “Happy,  is  it  you  say,  sir?  An’ 
shure,  whin  me  husband  was  tuk  up  wid  another 
woman,  how  could  I  be  happy?  An’  he  a-spending 
his  money  on  her,  too,  an’  the  wages  got  lower ;  an’ 
it’s  not  the  money  that  riled  me  neither,  it’s  me  as 
was  but  a  few  months  married,  an’  in  a  strange  coun- 
thrie,  and  he  a-riding  more  nor  three  times  wid  her 
in  a  chaise,  it  is.  Och !  but  he’d  been  over  and  larnt 
the  wicked  ways  before  iver  he  brought  me  here. 
Faith,  me  heart  was  broken,  it  was,  an’  I  hated  that 
woman  so,  I  was  longing  all  the  time  to  lay  me  hands 
on  her.  I’d  like  to  have  murthered  the  old  fiend, 
an’  I  wanted  to  go  to  the  factory  an’  inform  on  her ; 
but  me  husband  cursed  me,  and  threatened  to  kill 
me  if  I  did.”  “Pardon  this  rude  language  of  the 
poor,”  Goethe  says  to  Angelo,  who  loves  the  soft 
Italian  speech.  “  And  was  he  still  behaving  so  badly 
in  the  summer  before  Mary’s  first  summer  ?  ”  Goethe 
asked  her.  “  The  saints  be  praised,  no.  The  woman 
moved  away.  Bad  ’cess  to  her !  and  Patrick  gave 
up  his  bad  ways  afther,  and  trated  me  rale  well,  too. 
The  baste  of  a  woman  niver  came  back,  and  I  tuk 
no  more  trouble  consarning  her.” 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


243 


Children  are  mysteries,  it  is  said ;  but  this  is  not 
Goethe’s  opinion. 

Angelo  smiles,  and  looks  with  a  soft  pensiveness 
at  both  the  Adriatic  and  the  Mediterranean,  and  asks 
Goethe  if  this  is  not  an  exceptional  case,  or  if  he  has 
other  facts  like  these.  u  Why,”  answers  Goethe,  “  I 
knew  a  family  of  coarse,  and  thoroughly  common¬ 
place  people,  but  there  was  in  it  a  single  daughter, 
about  nineteen  years  old,  who  was  so  evidently  and 
remarkably  superior,  both  in  personal  appearance  and 
nature,  that  it  did  not  seem  possible  she  could  be¬ 
long  to  the  same  family.  There  was  no  explanation 
of  her  differing  from  her  brothers  and  sisters,  and  I 
thought  the  mystery  was  one  impossible  to  solve. 
Conversing  with  her  mother,  she  said,  4  No,  this  girl 
was  not  born  in  that  low  dwelling  under  the  shadow 
of  the  catalpas,  but  in  a  poorer  shed  in  Northern 
Tennessee.  We  were  very  poor  about  those  times, 
and  there  was  no  look-out  for  any  thing  better. 
Some  of  the  boys  had  come  up  here  to  see  if  they 
could  not  get  better  land.  But  we  had  no  money  to 
buy  it  with,  if  there  was.  There  was  a  book  I  must 
tell  you  about,  —  a  book  that  lifted  me  right  out  of 
myself.  There  came  along  a  peddler,  —  ’twas  a  won¬ 
der  how  he  ever  got  to  such  an  out-of-the-way  place, 
— well,  he  unpacked  his  traps,  and  among  them  was  a 
little  book  with  a  lovely  green  and  gold  cover.  ’Twas 
the  sweetest  little  thing  you  ever  saw,  and  there  was 
just  the  nicest  picture  in  the  front.  I  saw  it  was  po¬ 
etry,  and  on  the  first  page  it  said  “  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake ;  ”  that  was  all.  I  did  want  that  book ;  and  I 


244 


MARRIAGE. 


had  a  couple  of  dollars  in  a  stocking-foot  on  the  chim¬ 
ney-shelf  ;  but  a  dollar  was  a  big  thing  then,  and  I 
did  not  feel  as  if  I  ought  to  indulge  myself,  so  I  said 
no,  and  saw  him  pack  up  his  things  and  travel.  Then 
I  could  think  of  nothing  but  that  book  the  rest  of  the 
day,  I  wanted  it  so ;  and  at  night  I  could  not  sleep 
for  thinking  of  it.  At  last  I  got  up,  and  without 
making  a  bit  of  noise  dressed  myself,  and  walked 
four  miles  to  a  village  where  the  peddler  had  told  me 
*  he  should  stay  that  night  —  at  the  Browns  —  friends 
of  ours  they  were  ;  and  I  got  him  up  and  bought  the 
book,  and  brought  it  back  with  me  just  as  contented 
and  satisfied  as  you  can  believe.  I  looked  it  over 
and  through;  put  it  under  my  pillow,  and  slept 
soundly  till  morning.  The  next  day  I  began  to  read 
the  beautiful  story.  Every  page  took  that  hold  of 
me  that  I  forgot  all  about  the  pretty  cover,  and  per¬ 
haps  you  would  not  believe  it,*  but  before  Nellie  ar¬ 
rived  in  the  world,  if  you  would  but  give  me  a  word 
here  and  there,  I  could  begin  at  the  beginning  and 
say  it  clear  through  to  the  end.  It  appeared  to  me  I 
was  there  with  those  people  by  the  lakes  in  the  moun¬ 
tains ,  —  ^uith  Allan-Bane  and  his  harp ,  Ellen  Douglas , 
Malcolm  Graeme ,  Fitz-James ,  and  the  others .  I  saw 
Ellen’s  picture  before  me  when  I  was  milking  the 
cow,  or  cooking  on  the  hearth,  or  weeding  the  little 
garden.  There  she  was,  stepping  about  so  sweetly 
in  the  rhyme,  that  I  felt  it  to  be  all  true  as  the  day, 
—  more  true  after  I  could  repeat  it  to  myself.  And 
then  when  I  found  the  baby  grew  into  such  a  pretty 
girl,  and  so  smart,  too,  it  seemed  as  if  Providence 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


245 


had  been  ever  so  good  to  me  again.  But  children 
are  mysteries  any  way.  I  have  wondered  a  thousand 
times  why  Nellie  was  such  a  lady,  and  why  she  loved 
to  learn  so  much  more  than  the  other  children.’  ’ 
(This  and  the  previous  illustration  are  adapted  from 
the  personal  narratives  included  in  the  interesting 
work  of  Mrs.  G.  B.  Kirby,  New  York,  18T7,  on 
Transmission ,  or  Variation  of  Character ,  &c.) 

Children  are  mysteries !  Michel  Angelo  and 
Goethe  are  plainly  not  of  that  opinion.  You  say 
that  I  must  not  rest  this  case  upon  anecdote  ;  but  I 
would  ask,  on  what  shall  I  rest  it  if  it  be  not  on  sci¬ 
entific,  ascertained  fact.  Let  Professor  Dalton  be 
cited  here  by  Goethe,  on  the  Apennine  height,  under 
the  solemn  pines.  This  professor,  than  whom  there 
is  no  more  conservative,  sound  American  teacher  of 
scientific  fact,  utterly  divorced  from  theory,  states 
that  the  wife  of  the  janitor  of  the  College  of  Physi¬ 
cians  and  Surgeons  dreamed  that  she  saw  a  man  who 
had  lost  a  part  of  the  ear.  The  dream  made  a  great 
impression  on  her  mind,  and  she  mentioned  it  to  her 
husband.  A  child  appeared  in  the  world  with  a  por¬ 
tion  of  one  ear  deficient,  and  the  organ  was  like  the 
defective  ear  she  had  seen  in  her  dream.  When 
Professor  Dalton  was  lecturing  on  these  topics,  the 
janitor  called  his  attention  to  this  instance.  The 
ear,  says  Professor  Dalton,  looks  exactly  as  if  a  por¬ 
tion  had  been  cut  off  by  a  sharp  knife. 

The  superiority  of  mind  to  matter !  How  the  im¬ 
material  portion  of  us  dominates  the  material !  And 
how  slowly  are  we  getting  rid  of  the  materialism 


246 


MARRIAGE. 


* 

which  depends  on  matter  more  than  on  sonl  for 
beauty.  There  is  no  beauty  except  in  this  white 
horse  that  comes  down  from  the  heavenly  pastures. 
There  is  no  safe  driving  except  in  the  perfect  match¬ 
ing  of  the  white  horse  and  the  black. 

I  find  here  Professor  Lewis,  of  Bellevue  Hospital, 
making  some  most  astounding  assertions.  I  should 
not  believe  him,  were  he  not  a  scientific  expert.  A 
mother  longed  to  see  a  watch,  and  a  child  arrived  in 
the  world  with  the  figures  that  belonged  on  the  dial 
of  the  watch  formed  on  the  white  of  its  eyeball. 
Professor  Dalton  affirms  in  language  before  me  ( Hu¬ 
man  Physiology ),  that  there  can  no  longer  be  any 
serious  doubt  “  that  various  deformities  and  defi¬ 
ciencies  originate  in  certain  cases  from  nervous  im¬ 
pressions,  such  as  disgust,  fear,  or  anger,  experienced 
by  the  mother.” 

The  purpose  of  Goethe,  here  on  this  height,  is  to 
turn  that  proposition  over  into  its  converse.  The 
purpose  of  Angelo  is  to  make  it  clear  that,  as  a  child 
can  be  worse  than  its  mother,  so  it  may  be  better. 
The  world  has  listened  long  enough  to  the  facts  of 
science  as  to  monstrosities  and  deformities.  Why 
should  we  not  listen  to  the  possibilities  of  using  this 
two-edged  sword  of  heredity  on  the  useful  side  ?  It 
has  mown  down  the  race  ;  it  has  opened  a  wide  path 
for  vice  through  the  world  ;  it  has  given  to  the  centu¬ 
ries  their  accursed  and  dolorous  traits.  Why  should 
not  the  sword  be  reversed  ?  Why  should  the  black 
horse  not  be  made  to  keep  company  with  the  white, 
and  the  chariot  be  held  to  its  grooves  ?  The  other 


INHERITED  EDUCATIONAL  FORCES. 


247 


edge  of  the  sword  may  clear  the  way  for  the  happi¬ 
ness  of  the  ages.  [Applause.] 

Goethe  and  Angelo  walk  down  the  heights  to 
Pliny’s  villa.  They  stand  in  the  marble  corridors, 
and  their  eyes  are  like  stars ;  for  they  have  listened 
to  the  suggestions  of  every  secret  of  science.  Goethe 
will  not  allow  himself  to  be  as  frank  in  the  villa  as 
on  the  heights.  He  is  amazed  to  find,  however, 
although  little  is  said,  that  all  there  are  as  well 
informed  as  he.  Cornelia  no  less  than  Pliny,  Pan- 
thea  no  less  than  Milton,  Mrs.  Browning  no  less 
than  Michel  Angelo,  unite  in  reciting  to  the  four 
winds  and  the  two  seas,  to  the  Mediterranean  and 
the  Adriatic,  this  sonnet :  — 

“  O  star  of  morning  and  of  liberty! 

O  bringer  of  the  light,  whose  splendor  shines 
Above  the  darkness  of  the  Apennines, 

Forerunner  of  the  day  that  is  to  be ! 

The  voices  of  the  city  and  the  sea, 

The  voices  of  the  mountains  and  the  pines, 

Repeat  our  song,  till  the  familiar  lines 
Are  footpaths  for  the  thought  heredity  ! 

Its  fame  is  blown  abroad  from  all  the  heights, 

Through  all  the  nations ;  and  a  sound  is  heard 
As  of  a  mighty  wind ;  and  men  devout, 

Strangers  of  Rome,  and  the  new  proselytes, 

In  their  own  language  hear  its  wondrous  word  ; 

And  many  are  amazed,  and  many  doubt.” 

Adapted  from  Longfellow. 


X. 

HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TENTH  LECTURE  IN  THE  BOSTON 
MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  APRIL  22. 


Born  into  life!  — man  grows 
Forth  from  his  parents'  stem, 

And  blends  their  bloods,  as  those 
Of  theirs  are  blent  in  them; 

So  each  new  man  strikes  root  into  a  far  fore-time. 

Matthew  Arnold:  Empedocles  on  Etna. 


Wahrlich,  ein  Mann  musz  nie  iiber  die  mit  einer  Ewigkeit  bedeckte 
Schopfungminute  der  Welt  nachgesonnen  haben,  der  nicht  eine  Frau, 
deren  Lebensfaden  eine  verhiillte  unendliclie  Hand  zu  einem  zweiten 
spinnt,  und  die  den  Uebergang  vom  Nichts  zum  Seyn,  von  der 
Ewigkeit  in  die  Zeit  verkiillt,  mit  philosophischer  Yerehrung  an- 
blickt,  —  aber  noch  weniger  musz  ein  Mann  je  empfunden  haben, 
dessen  Seele  vor  einer  Frau  in  einem  Zustande,  wo  sie  einem 
unbekannten  ungesehenen  Wesen  noch  mehr  aufopfert  als  wir  dem 
bekannten,  namlich  Nachte,  Freuden  und  oft  das  Leben,  sich  nicht 
.  tiefer  und  mit  groszerer  Riihrung  biickt  als  vor  einem  ganzen 
singenden  Nonnen-Orchester,  auf  ihrer  Sarawiiste;  und  schlimmer 
als  beide  ist  einer,  dem  nicht  seine  Mutter  alle  anderen  Mutter 
verehrungwiirdig  macht.  —  Richter:  Quintus  Fixleiiu 


X. 


HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

Professor  Tyndall,  on  the  Alps,  in  company 
with  one  of  his  friends,  was  requested  by  the  latter 
to  tell  him  what  is  behind  the  keyboard  of  the  nerves 
in  man ;  or,  in  other  words,  what  causes  in  the  sub¬ 
stance  of  the  brain  the  molecular  motions  which  are 
supposed  to  be  the  basis  of  thought,  choice,  and 
emotion.  Pushed  from  point  to  point,  and  failing  to 
give  a  satisfactory  answer,  the  author  of  the  Belfast 
Address  at  last  burst  out  with  these  incisively  frank 
words  :  “  I  view  nature,  existence,  the  universe,  as  the 
keyboard  of  a  pianoforte.  What  came  before  the  bass 
I  do  not  know  and  do  not  care.  What  comes  after  the 
treble  I  equally  little  know  or  care.  The  keyboard, 
with  its  black  and  white  keys,  is  mine  to  study.” 
The  conversation  has  been  reported  to  the  world 
(Scribner  s  Monthly')  by  the  student  who  received 
this  remarkable  reply  to  his  inquiries.  It  illustrates 
the  willingness  of  certain  physical  philosophers  to 
limit  the  field  of  outlook  in  researches  into  mental 
physiology. 


251 


252 


MARRIAGE. 


It  is  conceded  that  neither  electricity,  nor  magnet¬ 
ism,  nor  heat,  nor  any  physical  force  with  which  we 
are  acquainted,  explains  what  we  call  the  soul.  But 
we  are  conscious  of  our  existence.  We  know  that 
if  from  the  mass  of  the  body  we  dissolve  out  the 
nerves  as  a  white  ghost,  there  is  something  finer 
than  they  behind  them;  namely,  the  nervous  influ¬ 
ence.  If  we  dissolve  out  all  the  bioplasts,  and  hold 
them  up  here  in  their  natural  positions,  there 
is  certainly  something  finer  yet  behind  them  all, 
namely,  the  force  which  co-ordinates  them.  If  we 
were  to  take  all  the  bioplasts  there  are  in  the  body, 
and  hold  them  up  here,  the  cluster  of  germinal 
points  would  have,  in  some  sense,  the  human  form ; 
but  it  would  not  be  the  finest  thing  in  man.  There 
is  an  influence  behind  the  bioplasm,  a  co-ordinating 
power,  arranging  the  growth  of  the  whole  body.  I 
have  asked  you,  on  a  former  occasion,  to  take  a  leaf 
from  the  tree  Igdrasil,  and  dissolve  out  the  finer  from 
the  coarser  portions.  I  have  asked  you  to  imagine 
standing  here  a  skeleton ;  then  next  a  man  made 
of  muscles ;  another  of  veins ;  another  of  nerves ; 
another  of  bioplasts.  You  know  that  behind  the 
nerves  there  is  a  force  which  you  may  conceive  to  be 
taken  out.  If  it  were  here  in  the  air,  you  could  not 
touch  it ;  you  could  pass  your  hand  through  it ; 
you  would  not  feel  it ;  and  yet  you  know  it  is  there. 
But  these  nerves  themselves  were  woven  by  the 
bioplasts.  Take  out  the  bioplasts.  Let  them  retain 
their  co-ordination.  There  is  something  behind  them, 
—  the  co-ordinating  power.  You  know  such  a  power 


HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 


253 


is  there.  Take  that  co-ordinating  power  out.  Hold 
it  up  here.  You  cannot  see  it ;  you  cannot  touch  it ; 
but  it  is  there. 

When  Professor  Tyndall  says  we  must  not  ask 
what  is  behind  the  keyboard,  I  find  that  he  is  re¬ 
pressing  investigation ;  and,  very  contrary  to  his 
nobility  of  character,  is  limiting  research.  Precisely 
at  the  point  where  he  says  he  does  not  care  what 
comes  before  the  bass  or  treble  in  the  mvsterious 

4 / 

anthem  of  the  molecular  motions  which  are  associ¬ 
ated  with  life  and  thought,  I  must  say  that  I  care ; 
and  on  this  Easter  morning  I  have  a  double  right  to 
say  so.  [Applause.] 

It  is  an  accepted  conclusion  with  Julius  Muller, 
that  this  finest  thing  of  all,  or  the  co-ordinating 
force  which  we  know  exists  in  the  physical  organism, 
is  the  true  body.  Through  capacities  peculiar  to  it¬ 
self,  it  has  taken  on  this  poor  fleshly  envelope.  What 
if,  by  and  by,  through  the  aid  of  the  same  capacities, 
it  shall  put  on  a  resurrection-body  ?  It  is  no  more 
wonderful  that  the  organic  principle  within  us  should 
clothe  itself  a  second  time,  than  that  it  has  clothed 
itself  a  first  time.  It  is  no  more  wonderful  that  we 
should  live  again ,  than  that  we  should  live  at  all.  It  is 
less  wonderful  that  we  should  continue  to  live ,  than  that 
we  have  begun  to  live.  Julius  Muller,  in  a  passage  of 
great  incisiveness  in  a  volume  now  before  me,  says,  “  It 
is  not  the  sarx ,  the  mass  of  earthy  material,  but  the 
soma ,  the  organic  whole,  to  which  the  Scriptures  prom¬ 
ise  a  resurrection.  The  organism,  as  the  living  form 
which  appropriates  matter  to  itself,  is  the  true  body, 


254 


MARRIAGE. 


which  in  its  glorification  becomes  the  soma  pneumatic 
con .  The  Scriptures  teach  that  the  soul,  between 
death  and  the  resurrection,  remains  unclothed.” 
(, Studien  und  Kritiken ,  1835,  pp.  777,  785.)  This  is 
language  forty  years  old,  and  represents  the  truly 
orthodox  view  of  the  resurrection. 

This  is  the  morning  after  Easter,  and  what  topic 
could  have  greater  timeliness  or  impressiveness  than 
that  which  is  suggested  by  these  three  questions :  — 

1.  From  the  point  of  view  of  theology,  what  is  the 
standard  orthodox,  scholarly  opinion  as  to  the  man¬ 
ner  of  the  resurrection  ? 

2.  From  the  point  of  view  of  biology,  what  is  the 
best  opinion  as  to  the  same  point? 

3.  Is  there  any  conflict  between  the  two  views  ? 

If  I  am  to  follow  Julius  M tiller,  I  must  regard  the 
true  body  and  the  resurrection  body  as  two  things. 
But  they  are  related  to  each  other  much  as  the  true 
body  and  the  body  of  flesh  now  are.  The  true  body 
is  the  organic  force  which  correlates  all  the  parts  of 
the  flesh.  It  assumes  here  the  clothing  of  the  physi¬ 
cal  tissues.  We  drop  at  death  all  that  is  corruptible 
or  gross,  but  the  soma ,  the  organic  whole,  as  Julius 
Muller  calls  the  correlating  force,  continues  to  exist. 
In  these  positions  Julius  Muller  is  not  denying  at  all 
the  Scriptural  assertion  that  there  will  be  perfect 
identity  between  the  resurrection  body  and  the  body 
laid  down  at  death.  The  Scriptures  assert  that  there 
is  sameness  between  the  body  which  we  bury  and  the 
body  which  is  to  be  raised.  They  do  not  teach  in 
what  the  sameness  consists.  Open  Professor  Hodge  of 


HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 


255 


Princeton  ( Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  iii.  pp.  TT8,  779), 
and  you  will  find  him  citing  Julius  Muller’s  views 
with  approval ;  hut  he  is  careful  to  say  that  neither 
the  Church  nor  the  Scripture  undertakes  to  determine 
in  what  the  sameness  consists  between  the  buried 
and  the  resurrection  body.  We  must  be  very  careful 
not  to  know  too  much  on  this  topic. 

What  Julius  Muller  teaches  is,  that  in  the  resur¬ 
rection  body  the  organic  principle  of  the  present 
body  clothes  itself  again.  It  is  unnecessary  to  go 
back,  with  some  mediaeval  teachers,  to  ask  whether 
any  part  of  the  body  that  is  buried  is  preserved,  and 
is  used  in  that  glorified  clothing.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  us  to  shock  ourselves  by  any  long  citation  of 
Jerome,  in  the  passage  where  he  says  that,  unless 
there  be  physical  bodies,  the  wicked  cannot  gnash 
their.teeth  in  the  next  life.  Neither  need  we  remem¬ 
ber  that  it  has  been  said  that  cripples  rise  as  cripples, 
and  that  those  who  were  variously  deformed  have 
the  same  deformity  in  the  resurrection  body.  All 
these  mediaeval  ideas  are  rejected  by  scholarly  theol¬ 
ogy  ;  they  hardly  belonged  to  a  serious  popular  pre¬ 
sentation  of  this  truth  £even  in  the  dark  ages. 

The  scholarly  presentation  of  the  manner  of  the 
resurrection  asserts  sameness  between  our  present 
body  and  the  resurrection  body,  much  in  the  sense  in 
which  it  asserts  sameness  between  this  present  body 
which  I  now  possess,  and  the  body  I  had  when  I  was 
five  or  ten  years  old.  Every  particle  of  that  earlier 
body  has  been  changed,  but  the  organic  principle  is 
unchanged.  The  man  who  committed  forgery  twenty 


256 


MARRIAGE. 


years  ago  is  responsible,  on  account  of  the  identity 
of  his  body,  for  the  crime  of  that  date ;  but  you 
know  he  has  changed  every  particle  in  his  body 
since  that  time.  And  so,  when  we  lay  down  the 
fleshly  body  at  death,  we  retain  the  organic  principle 
which  has  already  assumed  several  bodies.  At  the 
Resurrection  day  it  will  assume  a  glorified  body, 
of  which  the  capacities,  according  to  J ulius  Miiller, 
were  taught  at  the  Transfiguration,  and  in  the  forty 
days  after  the  Resurrection.  There  are  two  defini¬ 
tions  of  sameness, — chemical  identity  and  organic 
identity.  Julius  Muller  does  not  assert  chemical 
identity  between  the  present  body  and  the  resur¬ 
rection  body.  He  asserts  organic  identity.  Three 
things  are  to  be  distinguished  from  each  other,  —  the 
present  body  of  flesh,  the  present  organic  principle 
or  spiritual  body,  if  we  please  to  use  that  phrase,  and 
the  resurrection  body.  Consider  these  apart  from 
each  other,  and  you  will  not  be  confused  when  you 
read  Ulrici’s  views  of  the  spiritual  body  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  Julius  Muller’s  views.  The  organizing 
principle  and  the  resurrection  body  are  not  the  same 
thing,  any  more  than  the  hand  and  the  glove  are 
the  same,  or  any  more  than  the  sarx  and  the  soma 
are  the  same. 

Julius  Muller’s  teaching  is  far  from  being  that 
of  Swedenborg.  There  is  nothing  in  the  creeds  of 
the  Church  against  the  doctrine  of  a  spiritual  body 
as  now  existing  in  us,  and  as  an  organic  principle 
which  will  ultimately  assume  a  resurrection  body. 
This  is  the  doctrine  which  Julius  Miiller  derives  from 


HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 


257 


the  Scriptural  assurance  that  there  is  a  spiritual 
body,  and  there  is  a  natural  body,  —  that  is,  that 
now  and  here  we  have  a  natural  body,  and  now  and 
here  we  have  a  spiritual  body. 

Go  with  Julius  Muller  to  the  highest  outlook 
of  biological  science,  and  compare  his  view  of  the 
organizing  principle  in  man  with  the  biological  view 
of  an  invisible  force  or  co-ordinating  power  behind 
bioplasm.  Put  with  Julius  Muller  your  hand  through 
the  spaces  which  that  force  may  be  supposed  to 
occupy.  Study  this  co-ordinating  power  with  Ulrici 
and  Lionel  Beale  and  Hermann  Lotze.  Take  your 
biological  authorities  and  confront  them  with  your 
theological ;  and  surely  no  one  who  understands 
biological  science  on  the  one  hand,  and  theological 
science  on  the  .other,  will  find  any  conflict  between 
the  latter  and  the  latest  results  of  researches  into 
the  tissues,  leading  us  up  to  the  certainty  that  there 
is  a  co-ordinating,  invisible  somewhat  behind  the 
finest  fibres.  I  defy  any  man  to  show  that  there  is 
not  harmony  between  the  scientific  doctrine  of  the 
spiritual  body,  and  the  Biblical  on  the  same  point. 
[Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

When  Faust  signs  the  compact  with  Mephistophe- 
les  in  Goethe’s  immortal  poem,  the  ink  used  is  the 
red  fluid  of  life ;  and  Goethe  makes  Mephistopheles 
say,  with  mystic  emphasis,  — 

“  Blut  ist  ein  ganz  besonderer  Saft,”  — 

“  Blood  is  a  very  peculiar  sort  of  juice.”  The  com- 


258 


MARRIAGE. 


pact  which  sealed  the  fate  of  Faust  was  drawn  up 
outwardly  in  blood.  The  compact  which  I  suppose 
seals  the  fate  of  every  Faust  and  of  every  Margaret 
in  this  assembly  is  drawn  up  inwardly  in  blood.  The 
superstitions  of  the  Middle  Ages  as  to  the  compacts 
with  evil  spirits  are  by  no  means  too  suggestive 
symbols  of  the  truths  of  modern  science.  We  know 
now  that  the  compact  can  be  made  with  white  spirits 
as  well  as  with  black.  The  former  bargain  as  well 
as  the  latter  may  be  drawn  up  in  words  written  with 
this  very  peculiar  fluid.  Hereditary  corruption  !  Do 
you  wish  to  know  what  it  is  ?  The  black  wheels  on 
which  its  chariot  rolls  through  the  world  have  been 
put  before  you  here  in  photographic  views  of  the 
morbid  alterations  in  the  blood  disks.  Responsibility 
in  spite  of  inherited  tendencies !  Do  you  wish  to 
know  what  that  is  ?  The  white  wheels  on  which  its 
chariot  rolls  across  all  our  corruption,  ploughing 
their  way  through  the  mire  of  our  depravities,  and 
victoriously  ascending  the  azure  at  last,  have  been 
outlined  here  before  you  by  science.  Let  no  man 
think  that  I  forget  the  opportunities  which  I  cannot 
occupy,  but  which  now  lie  invitingly  before  us,  to 
consider  the  nature  of  inborn  evil  propensities.  He¬ 
reditary  depravity  is  a  fact  of  science,  for  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  corrupt  propensity  is  stimulated  by 
inherited  morbid  blood.  But  if  any  one  doubts  that 
above  the  grade  of  experiences  which  we  call  insan¬ 
ity  there  is  moral  responsibility,  let  him  look  into 
the  depths  of  conscience.  Not  without  a  plan  have 
I  discussed  this  year,  first  conscience,  and  then 


HER  EDIT  ARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 


259 


heredity;  for  I  wished  in  subsequent  Lectures  to 
make  inferences  from  both  topics  that  will  blanch 
the  cheeks.  In  this  place,  and  now,  howfever,  as 
thousands  of  miles  of  travel  and  many  strange 
events  probably  lie  between  this  hour  and  that  com¬ 
ing  one,  in  which,  if  at  all,  I  shall  see  the  faces 
of  this  assembly  once  more,  I  beg  leave  to  point 
out  the  fact  that  we  have  ascended  heights  from 
which  loftier  pinnacles  are  visible.  From  the  posi¬ 
tion  where  we  now  stand,  we  may  behold,  above  the 
truth  of  man’s  inherited  evil  propensities,  the  cer¬ 
tainty  of  his  power  of  victorious  self-amelioration 
under  the  impulse  of  a  Spirit  that  is  in  him,  but  not 
of  him.  Heredity  suggests  fate.  Conscience  teaches 
freedom.  Even  Plato  taught  that  the  black  horse 
before  our  chariots  may  be  controlled  by  the  white 
horse  with  which  he  is  mated,  and  by  the  chariot¬ 
eer. 

An  Arabian  chief  was  once  brought  before  a  ty¬ 
rant,  and  told  that  he  must  kiss  his  tormentor.  “  I 
will  do  it  very  gladly,”  said  he ;  for  he  was  suffer¬ 
ing  from  the  leprosy,  but  the  disease  was  not  visible. 
He  kissed  the  tyrant,  and  the  latter  became  a  leper. 
This,  you  say,  is  unjust  on  the  part  of  Nature.  But 
the  possibility  of  the  occurrence  of  facts  like  these 
is  Nature’s  proclamation  of  the  breadth  of  the  dis¬ 
tance  at  which  the  unclean  should  be  made  to  stand 
apart  from  the  clean.  We  read  that  men  were  once 
obliged,  when  lepers,  to  fall  down  with  their  faces  to 
the  ground,  and  call  out  “unclean,”  “unclean,”  when 
in  the  presence  of  the  healthful.  This  was  Nature’s 


260 


MARRIAGE. 


law,  and  she  adheres  to  it  to-day,  and  when  it  is  vio¬ 
lated  exacts  fearful  penalty. 

Can  Nature  be  justified  for  the  sternness  of  her 
rules  as  to  contagious  and  hereditary  diseases  ? 

What  do  the  Supreme  Powers  mean  by  the  ma¬ 
jestic,  irreversible  laws  of  transmitted  morbid  condi¬ 
tions?  In  the  carmine  growths  of  disease  there  is 
fastened  upon  certain  vices  the  great  red  seal  of  God 
Almighty’s  wrath.  Evil  sometimes  falls  on  the  inno¬ 
cent.  What  does  Nature  mean  by  the  terrific  straight¬ 
forwardness  of  heredity?  If  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts  had  the  power,  which  Nature  has,  to 
alter  the  blood-corpuscles,  and  to  cause  the  ingre¬ 
dients  of  the  blood  to  deteriorate,  as  great  Nature 
does  on  certain  occasions,  and  were  to  make  laws  as 
to  the  morbid  alteration  of  the  life-fluid,  such  as 
Nature  has  made,  and  were  to  execute  them  every 
time,  it  would  be  certain  that  Massachusetts  is  fear¬ 
fully  in  earnest.  We  have  seen  that  Almighty  God 
executes  these  laws,  which  he  has  himself  ordained, 
and  executes  them  every  time,  and  makes  no  apology. 

I  had  read  much  of  leprosy,  and  had  heard  fearful 
stories  of  the  East ;  but  I  was  never  impressed  by 
any -presentation  of  the  theme  of  Eastern  diseases  as 
I  once  was,  five  years  ago  to-morrow,  on  Zion’s  hill 
in  Jerusalem.  I  had  seen  lepers  without  fingers,  and 
had  helped  scatter  alms  to  them  at  the  gates  of  several 
Eastern  towns.  As  many  here  must  remember,  there 
is  on  Zion’s  hill  in  Jerusalem,  close  to  the  wall,  a 
set  of  hovels,  their  doors  opening  toward  the  wall. 
There  is  a  broad  space  of  ruined  buildings  between 


HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN’  BLOOD. 


261 


that  set  of  hovels  and  the  city ;  and  the  lepers  who 
are  not  too  far  gone  are  allowed  to  live  for  a  while  in 
these  hovels.  Food  is  thrown  to  them  over  certain 
barriers.  No  touch  of  any  vessels  used  by  them  is 
permitted  to  the  healthful.  I  rode  past  that  spot  on 
horseback,  and  my  guide  said,  “  Turn  your  face  the 
other  way :  do  not  breathe  too  deeply  the  wind  from 
those  hovels.”  Fascinating  me  as  I  looked,  there 
stood  a  Syrian  young  woman,  perhaps  twenty  or 
twenty-five  years  of  age,  inside  the  fatal  barrier.  She 
was  dressed  as  any  Syrian  female,  except  that  her  face 
was  uncovered.  I  saw  no  evidence  of  disease,  but 
was  told  by  my  guide  that  a  single  finger  had  been 
attacked,  and  that  the  trouble  was  wholly  hereditary. 
She  had  been  carried  by  the  stern  laws  of  the  land 
over  the  fatal  line.  It  was  her  duty  to  feed  the  aged 
and  the  infirm  there ;  and  to  wait  for  the  time  when 
the  white  leprosy,  coming  out  upon  her  hands,  should 
cause  joint  to  drop  from  joint.  Finally  her  limbs 
were  to  totter,  and  she  was  at  last  to  be  in  need  of 
food  from  others  like  herself.  I  looked  into  her  face. 
There  was  an  inexpressible  sadness  in  her  counte¬ 
nance,  and  yet  a  certain  serenity.  God  is  in  blood, 
and  do  you  say  that  Satan  is  in  it  too  ?  Satan  is  a 
minister  of  God.  I  went  from  that  scene  resolved 
that,  if  ever  opportunity  came  to  me,  I  would  woo 
the  light  of  science  to  blaze  before  any  audience  it 
might  be  my  fortune  to  hold  up  a  rushlight  before ; 
and  to  blaze  in  the  name  not  only  of  the  dark  things 
that  may  come  to  man  through  the  law  of  hereditary 
descent,  but  of  the  white  things  also.  Was  I  not 


262 


MARRIAGE. 


wandering  over  ground  which  had  been  trodden  by 
feet  inheriting  human  conditions,  and  through  a  long 
line  of  ancestry  lifted,  until  the  brain  of  Him  who 
spoke  as  never  man  spoke,  although  a  human  brain, 
was  fit  to  be  an  abode  of  Almighty  God?  From 
those  poor  lepers,  up  to  that  brain  of  the  Son  of 
God,  extends  the  breadth  of  emphasis  which  great 
Nature  gives  to  the  theme  of  morbid  alterations  in 
the  vital  fluid.  [Applause.] 

What  are  the  relations  of  the  white  to  the  red 
blood  corpuscles? 

1.  The  numbers  of  the  white  blood  corpuscles  and 
of  the  red  disks  in  the  blood  are  to  each  other  as 
about  one  to  three  hundred. 

2.  The  red  disks  are  believed  to  be  as  inanimate 
while  in  the  body  as  they  are  after  the  blood  has 
been  withdrawn  from  the  vessels.  (Beale,  Disease 
Gcerms ,  p.  409.)  Of  course  I  know  that  they  are 
first  formed  by  the  bioplasm,  but  the  red  blood  disk 
is  a  piece  of  formed  material  when  it  is  finished. 
Each  red  corpuscle  tends  to  assume  a  crystalline 
form  when  its  movement  ceases.  Living  matter  does 
not  crystallize.  ( Ibid .,  p.  409.) 

3.  The  white  blood  corpuscle  is  a  bioplast. 

4.  The  whole  organism  at  an  early  period  consists 
of  bioplasts. 

5.  These  were  the  descendants  of  previously  ex¬ 
isting  germinal  matter. 

6.  All  the  bioplasts  grow  and  subdivide  them¬ 
selves  in  the  embryo. 

7.  In  the  adult  many  bioplasts  cease  to  grow  in 
the  older  tissues. 


HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 


263 


8.  The  white  blood  corpuscles,  however,  are  bio¬ 
plasts  which  grow  and  subdivide  themselves  in  the 
blood  of  the  adult,  just  as  all  the  bioplasts  did  in 
the  embryo.  (Ibid.,  p.  112.) 

9.  The  white  blood  corpuscles  possess  formative 
power. 

10.  They  possess  this  power,  even  in  the  age  of 
the  adult,  in  a  higher  degree  than  any  other  form  of 
bioplasm  in  the  adult.  This  formative  power  in  the 
white  blood  corpuscle  is  of  a  more  general  character 
than  is  possessed  by  the  bioplasts  in  the  general 
tissues.  When  we  wound  ourselves,  the  white  blood 
bioplasts  are  instrumental  in  effecting  a  cure.  The 
bioplasts  that  lie  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the  gash 
are  concerned  also,  but  without  the  aid  of  the  white 
blood  corpuscles  would  not  be  effective. 

11.  The  ancestral  white  blood  bioplasts  from  which 
all  have  directly  descended  were  developed  at  a  time 
anterior  to  that  when  the  various  bioplasts  taking 
part  in  the  formation  of  the  tissues  diverged  from 
that  common  progenitor.  (Ibid.,  p.  109.) 

12.  Thus  formative  power  of  a  more  general  char¬ 
acter  than  is  possessed  by  the  bioplasts  of  the  tissues 
belongs  to  the  white  blood  bioplasts. 

13.  The  reproduction  of  lost  parts  or  organs  in 
some  of  the  lower  animals  is  probably  to  be  ex¬ 
plained  as  the  effect  of  this  action  of  bodies  re¬ 
sembling  the  blood  bioplasts. 

14.  At  an  early  period  of  development  only  white 
blood  corpuscles  exist  in  the  blood.  (Frey,  Corn- 
,perndium  of  Histology,  p.  26.) 


264 


MARRIAGE. 


15.  When  the  circulation  is  carried  on  slowly, 
these  corpuscles  grow  and  multiply. 

16.  The  number  of  white  blood  corpuscles  in  the 
blood  increases  after  a  plentiful  meal.  (Frey,  Com¬ 
pendium  of  Histology ,  p.  24.) 

17.  The  blood  flowing  into  the  spleen  has  only 
one,  two,  or  three  colorless  blood-cells  to  one  thou¬ 
sand  red  ones:  in  the  blood  of  the  splenic  vein 
five,  seven,  twelve,  fifteen,  and  more  of  them,  occur. 
(. Ibid .,  p.  24.)  As  physicians  here  know,  this  pecu¬ 
liar  organ  called  the  spleen  has  long  been  a  mystery ; 
but  it  now  appears  that  one  of  its  offices  is  to  in¬ 
crease  the  number  of  white  blood  corpuscles. 

18.  White  blood  bioplasts  become  in  part  trans¬ 
formed  into  red  blood  corpuscles  and  cover  the  loss 
of  the  latter. 

19.  All  the  masses  of  bioplasm  in  the  body  have 
descended  from  one  in  a  regular,  definite,  and  pre¬ 
arranged  order. 

20.  If  from  any  circumstance  the  bioplasm  that  is 
to  form  a  part  of  the  eye,  or  brain,  or  any  other 
organ,  is  not  produced,  that  part  of  the  eye,  brain,  or 
other  organ  will  be  wanting  in  the  particular  organ¬ 
ism.  (Beale,  Disease  Germs ,  p.  93.) 

Such  is  a  rapid  summary  of  the  latest  research  in 
regard  to  the  relations  of  the  red  and  white  blood 
corpuscles. 

We  are  now  ready  to  face  a  yet  more  central  ques¬ 
tion  :  What  are  the  laws  of  the  origin  and  growth  of 
morbid  bioplasm  ? 

Allow  me  to  state  Dr.  Beale’s  theory  of  the  nature 


HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 


265 


of  disease  germs.  I  know  how  I  may  shock  some 
who  think  that  all  diseases  have  an  origin  in  vegeta¬ 
ble  growths,  hut  I  must  claim  that  some  diseases 
have  a  distinct  origin  in  morbid  bioplasm.  I  under¬ 
stand  Lionel  Beale’s  theory  to  go  farther  than  the 
one  I  am  to  put  before  you.  In  the  use  of  numerals, 
I  seek  to  save  time,  and  give  conspicuousness  to 
governing  propositions,  and  this  in  their  consecutive 
and  logical  order. 

1.  Morbid  bioplasm  originating  in  one  animal  may 
multiply  in  another. 

2.  Regular,  orderly,  and  comparatively  slow  growth 
characterizes  the  multiplication  of  healthful  bioplasm, 
capable  of  forming  lasting  structures  and  elaborate 
organs. 

3.  Rapid  multiplication  of  bioplasm,  on  the  other 
hand,  involves  degradation  in  its  formative  power. 

4.  The  formative  power  may  be  at  length  entirely 
lost  never  to  be  re-acquired. 

5.  Degradation  in  power  is  commonly  associated 
with  increased  rate  of  growth  and  increased  facility 
of  resisting  adverse  conditions. 

6.  With  this  increased  vitality  in  morbid  bioplasm, 
it  takes  up  more  than  the  nourishment  that  should 
be  appropriated  by  the  healthy  parts. 

7.  The  latter  are  consequently  starved,  deterio¬ 
rated,  and  at  last  completely  destroyed. 

8.  Disease  germs  are  sometimes  particles  of  living 
matter  derived  by  direct  descent  from  the  living 
matter  of  man’s  organization.  The  too  rapid  mul¬ 
tiplication  of  bioplasm  may  give  rise  to  diseased  bio 


266 


MARRIAGE. 


plasts  which  may  be  direct  descendants  of  white 
blood  corpuscles  as  well  as  of  other  germinal  matter. 

9.  By  the  multiplication  of  morbid  bioplasts  in 
the  capillaries,  local  congestions  are  caused,  and  in 
this  way  peculiar  eruptions  and  rashes  result.  The 
congestion  sometimes  ends  in  complete  stagnation, 
and  the  death,  destruction,  and  removal  of  the  portion 
of  the  tissue  affected. 

10.  The  microscope  shows  that  the  blood  in  disease 
contains  a  large  number  of  minute  masses  of  morbid 
bioplasm,  and  products  resulting  from  their  death  and 
decay,  which  are  not  present  in  healthy  blood. 
(Lionel  Beale,  The  Microscope  in  Medicine ,  1878, 
p.  264,  and  Disease  Germs ,  pp.  94-127.  On  the  whole 
subject  of  blood  corpuscles  see  Professor  Arthur 
Bottcher,  in  vol.  xxxvi.  of  Virchow’s  Archiv ., 
p.  342.) 

So  fully  have  these  points  been  illustrated  by  the 
elaborate  microscopical  exhibitions  put  before  you, 
that  I  shall  not  pause  to  enumerate  in  detail  the  con¬ 
clusions  supported  by  the  photographs.  You  saw  a 
sprout  bursting  from  a  corpuscle.  There  lies  on  that 
chair  Lionel  Beale’s  freshest  work  on  “  Microscopy 
in  Medicine,  ”  and  he  recites  (p.  260)  the  experiments 
of  Lastorfer,  in  which,  after  the  blood  had  been 
allowed  to  remain  several  days  in  a  certain  tempera¬ 
ture,  these  sprouting  fibrils  appeared.  Several  phy¬ 
sicians,  who  challenged  Lastorfer ’s  assertions,  put 
before  him  blood,  some  of  it  healthful,  some  of  it  mor¬ 
bid,  and  in  every  case,  so  the  record  runs,  on  which 
Lionel  Beale  relies,  he  distinguished  the  blood  of  a 


HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 


267 


man  suffering  from  the  nameless  disease  from  that  of 
the  man  who  was  in  health. 

Suppose  that  you  call  up  to  this  stand  some  phy¬ 
sician,  and  open  his  note-books.  “  I  reside  in  the 
country,  ten  leagues  from  Paris,”  one  of  the  revela¬ 
tory  confessions  of  a  patient  reads.  “I  have  four 
children,  all  of  whom,  together  with  their  father  and 
myself,  have  always  enjoyed  excellent  health.  Eight 
months  since  I  took  a  foundling  child  to  nurse,  two 
years  of  age.  It  was  a  wretched-looking  child,  and 
had  pimples  on  its  body,  and  sore  throat.  We  per¬ 
mitted  it  to  take  soup  with  the  same  spoon  as  our¬ 
selves,  and  to  drink  from  the  same  glass.  Soon  one 
of  my  girls  complained  of  a  severe  sore  throat ;  this 
increased,  and  she  died  in  about  six  weeks.  The 
foundling  also  died.  Soon  after  this  I  began  to  suf¬ 
fer  frofri  an  affection  of  the  throat,  as  did  these  two 
children.”  This  woman  and  the  children  died  of  a 
disease  which  cannot  be  described  in  mixed  company. 
(See  Westminster  Review ,  July,  1869,  p.  213,  and 
scores  of  similar  cases  in  the  report  of  the  select 
committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  Contagious 
Diseases  Act,  1868.) 

Open  again  the  records  of  authentic  physical  re¬ 
search.  I  find  that  a  military  officer  on  bidding  fare¬ 
well  to  his  niece  kissed  her.  Not  the  slightest 
unhealthful  look  existed  on  the  face  of  the  officer, 
but  it  appears  that  one  of  the  formations  which  will 
soon  be  thrown  on  this  screen  before  the  eyes  of  you 
all  had  become  diseased.  Within  a  few  weeks  that 
niece  was  taken  over  the  fatal  line  between  health 
and  corruption.  She  died  of  a  single  kiss. 


'  268 


MARRIAGE. 


Glance  once  more  at  these  authentic  records.  We 
find  an  infant  in  the  cradle.  It  has  a  sore  mouth ;  it 
complains  of  a  sore  throat;  but  it  is  full  of  glee.  It 
has  attractive,  affectionate  ways.  A  cousin  and  a 
sister  are  here.  They  bend  down  and  kiss  the  young 
human  being.  It  is  ten  weeks  old.  Strange  rashes 
and  eruptions  appear  in  its  face.  It  is  twenty-five 
weeks  old.  The  sister  and  the  cousin  begin  to  be 
afflicted  with  the  same  eruptions  and  rashes.  The 
mother  says,  u  You  must  not  kiss  that  infant  again.” 
But  the  mischief  is  done.  At  thirty-six  weeks  the 
babe  dies,  but  the  cousin  lingers  through  ten  years 
of  nameless  tortures.  Shut  out  from  all  society, 
unfit,  of  course,  for  the  offices  most  sacred  in  life, 
she  dies.  In  1849,  the  sister,  who  had  married,  al¬ 
though  she  had  had  eruptions  on  the  face,  and  al¬ 
though  maternal  advice  was  against  her  marriage, 
brings  into  the  world  a  child,  strangely  blotched  at 
birth.  It  lingers  on  two  years,  three,  four.  By  and 
by  the  nasal  bone  drops.  Other  bones  in  the  face 
drop.  It  grows  emaciated.  It  is  a  mass  of  corrup¬ 
tion,  and  the  mother  soon  follows  it  into  a  loathsome 
grave.  (See  Whitehead,  Dr.  James,  On  Hereditary 
Diseases ,  London,  1857,  for  this  case  and  a  great 
number  of  similar  cases  in  detail.) 

Who  did  all  that?  You,  dissipated  young  man, 
very  possibly!  What  was  the  name  of  this  officer? 
No  matter.  His  name  may  be  yours  to-morrow. 
[Applause.] 

There  lies  before  me  a  book  on  the  J ukes,  a  single 
family  who,  in  forty-five  years,  have  cost  the  State 


HEREDITARY  TAINTS  IN  BLOOD. 


269 


of  New  York  a  million  and  a  quarter  of  dollars.  We 
have  heard  of  Maria,  the  mother  of  criminals ;  and 
know  how  inherited  bad  blood  need  not  be  such  as 
to  produce  loathsome  physical  corruption,  and  yet 
may  produce  moral  corruption.  The  Jukes  family 
shows  what  belongs  to  the  moral  forms  of  inherited 
evil,  as  leprosy  what  belongs  to  the  physical. 

In  contrast  with  the  Jukes,  remember  the  Pitcairn 
Islanders.  In  the  Southern  seas,  on  the  sunrise  side 
of  Australia,  a  company  of  rude  mutineers  landed  on 
an  island ;  and,  after  the  native  males  had  fallen  in 
war,  the  sailors  were  suddenly  sobered  by  their  lone¬ 
liness  and  their  need,  and  under  some  stimulation 
of  memory  thought  it  best  to  be  Christians.  They 
adopted  for  the  government  of  the  island  the  best 
laws  known  to  them.  A  new  and  noble  population 
has  come  into  existence.  At  this  hour  it  is  said  that 
a.  Pitcairn  Island  woman  needs  only  to  wave  her  hand 
royally  toward  a  sailor  to  make  him  a  man,  if  he  has 
been  previously  a  beast.  While  in  her  presence  he 
can  only  worship.  White  blood  descends  as  well  as 
black ;  that  is,  good  blood  as  well  as  morbid.  (See 
Prosper  Lucas’s  celebrated  Traite  cV Heredite.')  You 
have  seen  here,  both  in  its  clear  and  in  its  turbid  con¬ 
dition,  the  fluid  in  which  the  blood  disks  and  corpus¬ 
cles  float.  Lionel  Beale  says  that  the  adulteration  of 
that  fluid  is  the  most  interesting  and  the  most  fatal 
of  all  the'  morbid  alterations  of  the  blood.  You  have 
seen  this  deterioration  marked  by  physical  signs 
exhibited  to  you  at  first  hand  in  some  sixty  or  a  hun¬ 
dred  photographic  specimens.  As  surely,  however, 


270 


MARRIAGE. 


as  this  turbidness  and  deterioration  may  produce 
depravity,  so  surely  pure  blood,  on  the  other  hand, 
gives  instinctive  impulses  as  capable  of  lifting  us  as 
the  others  are  of  dragging  us  down.  God  is  in  blood ; 
He  is  the  charioteer  of  our  black  horses  as  well  as  of 
our  white ;  and  up  the  slope  of  the  azure  the  stern 
reins  and  lash  of  His  laws  seek  to  drive  both  of 
them,  the  white  no  whiter  than  the  black  may  be 
at  last, -under  God’s  training  when  it  is  permitted 
by  our  free  will  to  be  complete.  [Applause.] 


Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  Rand ,  Avery ,  tfc  Co.,  Boston. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES 


By  JOSEPH  COOK. 

- ♦ - 

HISTORY  OF  THE  LECTURES . 


The  Bibliotheca  Sacra ,  January ,  1878. 

Mr.  Joseph  Cook  was  invited,  early  in  September,  1875,  by  the 
Young  Men’s  Christian  Association  of  Boston,  to  lead  the  noon 
prayer-meeting  in  the  Meionaon  daily  for  a  week,  and  to  make  on 
each  occasion  an  address  of  half  an  hour  in  length.  After  four  ot 
these  services,  it  was  found  that  the  audience  had  quadrupled  in  size. 
Mr.  Cook  was  requested  to  continue  his  addresses  daily  through 
another  week.  On  Monday  noon,  Sept.  23,  the  subject  was  “  Final 
Permanence  of  Moral  Character;  or,  The  Doctrine  of  Future  Pun¬ 
ishment,”  and  it  was  noticed  that  a  hundred  ministers  were  in  the 
audience.  Mr.  Cook  was  then  requested  to  speak  on  the  Atonement, 
on  a  Sabbath  evening,  in  Park-street  Church.  lie  complied  with 
this  request,  and  spoke  to  an  audience  filling  the  house  to  its  utmost 
capacity.  He  was  then  invited  by  the  Young  Men’s  Christian  Asso¬ 
ciation  to  speak  every  Monday  noon,  in  the  Meionaon,  for  twelve 
weeks.  Oct.  25  his  subject  was  “  Boston  Sceptical  Cliques.”  “  The 
Daily  Advertiser  ”  had  a  reporter  present,  who  reproduced  a  part  of 
the  address.  “  The  Springfield  Republican  ”  began  to  call  attention 
to  the  large  number  of  ministers  and  scholars  who  were  present  at 
the  Monday  Lectures.  It  was  suggested,  in  many  quarters,  that 
these  lectures  should  be  continued  regularly  through  the  winter. 
Meantime,  Mr.  Cook  was  delivering  one  course  of  lectures  at  Am¬ 
herst  College,  and  another  at  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary,  largely  on 
Materialism,  Evolution,  and  various  biological  topics.  The  Meio- 
naou  Hall  seats  about  eight  hundred  persons,  and  in  January,  1876, 
was  completely  filled  by  Mr.  Cook’s  hearers.  After  four  months 
had  passed,  the  assemblies  were  occasionally  gathered  in  Bromfield- 
street  Church.  The  lectures  continued  to  be  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Young  Men’s  Christian  Association,  until  May,  1876,  when,  at  a 
meeting  in  Bromfield-street  Church,  resolutions  were  passed  found¬ 
ing  the  Boston  Monday  Lectureship,  and  placing  it,  for  the  next 
season,  under  the  care  of  a  committee,  consisting  of  Prof.  E.  P. 
Gould  of  the  Newton  Theological  Institute,  the  Rev.  Dr.  E.  B. 
Webb  of  Boston,  the  Rev.  Dr.  McKeown,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Cutler, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Deming,  the  Rev.  Edward  Edmunds,  and  the  Rev. 
W.  M.  Baker,  —  men  of  different  evangelical  denominations.  The 
lectures  for  1875-76  continued  eight  months,  and  closed,  with  the 
forty-fifth  of  the  course,  on  the  last  Monday  in  May,  in  Bromfield- 
street  Church. 

In  October,  1876,  the  lectures  were  resumed  in  the  Meionaon; 
but  the  hall  was  found  to  be  too  small  for  the  audience.  It  was, 


2 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


therefore,  soon  transferred  to  Park-street  Church.  Two  lectures 
were  given  in  this  large  auditorium,  when  it  was  found  to  he  much 
too  small,  and  the  audiences  were  crowded  out  into  Tremont  Tem¬ 
ple.  The  first  lecture  there  was  given  Nov.  13,  1876.  This  hall  will 
contain  from  twenty-five  hundred  to  three  thousand  people,  and 
was  often  more  than  full  in  the  winter  of  1876-77.  During  the 
delivery  of  a  course  of  thirteen  lectures  on  “  Biology,”  and  of  eleven 
on  “Transcendentalism,”  and  of  eleven  on  “Orthodoxy,”  it  was 
often  necessary  to  turn  hearers  away,  as  they  could  not  obtain 
standing-room.  From  the  forty- fifth  lecture  “The  Boston  Daily 
Advertiser”  published  full  stenographic  reports  of  the  lectures. 
The  reporter’s  manuscript  was  revised  by  the  lecturer.  “  The  New- 
York  Independent  ”  regularly  republished  the  lectures  from  Feb¬ 
ruary,  1876.  “  The  Cincinnati  Gazette”  did  the  same;  and  a  large 

number  of  newspapers  throughout  the  country  published  extracts 
from  them.  In  the  course  of  the  winter  a  few  replies  to  certain 
statements  in  the  lectures  were  made  by  Rev.  Dr.  James  Freeman 
Clarke  and  other  Unitarians,  by  Rev.  Dr.  Miner  and  other  Univer- 
salist  ministers. 

From  February,  1876,  most  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures  were 
republished  in  London  by  the  firm  of  R.  D.  Dickinson,  Farringdon 
Street.  Individual  lectures  were  republished  in  “The  Christian 
World  Pulpit,”  and  other  theological  serials  of  Great  Britain.  At 
the  close  of  the  course  for  1876-77,  in  May,  eighty  lectures  had  been 
given,  of  which  all  from  the  forty-fifth  had  been  published.  In 
September,  1877,  James  R.  Osgood  and  Company  issued  “Biology, 
with  Preludes  on  Current  Events,”  a  collection  of  thirteen  Boston 
Monday  Lectures.  This  volume,  at  the  beginning  of  December,  1877, 
was  in  its  twelfth  edition.  In  November  the  same  house  issued 
another  course  of  Mr.  Cook’s  lectures,  entitled  “  Transcenden¬ 
talism,”  and  announced  still  another  course,  entitled  “  Orthodoxy.” 

Oct.  1,  a  course  of  ten  lectures  on  “Conscience”  was  opened, 
and,  Dec.  10,  a  course  of  ten  on  “  Hereditary  Descent.”  Full  steno¬ 
graphic  reports,  revised  by  Mr.  Cook,  are  now  published  in  “  The 
Boston  Daily  Advertiser,”  “The  New-York  Independent,”  “The 
Cincinnati  Gazette,”  and  “  The  New-York  Advocate.”  Very  num¬ 
erous  other  papers  publish  large  extracts  from  them.  At  least  a 
hundred  thousand  copies  appear  weekly.  The  lectures  are  regularly 
republished  in  London. 

It  ought  to  be  added,  that  since  the  close  of  his  lectures  in  May, 
1877,  Mr.  Cook  has  delivered  several  of  them  in  New-York  city, 
Rochester  and  Syracuse,  N.Y.,  Princeton,  N.J.,  and  various  other 
places;  has  also  supplied  various  pulpits  in  Boston  and  other  cities. 
Before  a  critic  passes  any  severe  criticism  on  these  lectures,  he  may 
wisely  ask  himself  whether,  without  having  a  previously  established 
reputation,  he  would  be  able  for  two  years  to  interest  congregations 
containing  sometimes  fifteen  hundred  hearers,  of  whom  sometimes 
five  hundred  are  liberally  educated  men,  assembled  in  the  midst  of 
pressing  engagements,  and  in  the  whirl  of  a  great  city;  and  whether, 
in  addition  to  his  Monday-noon  exercises,  lie  would  be  able  to  super¬ 
intend  the  printing  of  three  volumes  of  his  lectures  on  abstruse 
and  complicated  themes,  to  preach  frequently  on  the  sabbath,  and 
occasionally  to  deliver  sermons,  each  one  of  which  is  from  one  to 
two  hours  in  length. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES , 


3 


BIOLOGY. 

WITH  PRELUDES  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

Three  Colored  Illustrations.  12mo.  $1.50. 


CONTENTS. 

LECTURES. 

I.  Huxley  and  Tyxdall  on  Evolution. 

II.  The  Concessions  of  Evolutionists. 

III.  The  Concessions  of  Evolutionists. 

IV.  The  Microscope  and  Materialism. 

V.  Lotze,  Beale,  and  Huxley  on  Living  Tissues. 

VI.  Life  or  Mechanism  —  Which? 

VII.  Does  Death  end  All  ?  Involution  and  Evolution. 

VIII.  Does  Death  end  All?  The  Nerves  and  the  Soul. 

IX.  Does  Death  end  All  ?  Is  Instinct  Immortal  ? 

X.  Does  Death  end  All?  Bain’s  Materialism. 

XI.  Automatic  and  Influential  Nerves. 

XII.  Emerson’s  Views  on  Immortality. 

XIII.  Ulrici  on  the  Spiritual  Body. 

PRELUDES. 

I.  Gift-Enterprises  in  Politics. 

II.  Safe  Popular  Freedom. 

III.  Daniel  Webster’s  Death.  % 

IV.  Civil-Service  Reform. 

V.  Authorities  on  Biology. 

VI.  Boston  and  Edinburgh. 

VII.  The  Gulf-Current  in  History. 


TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

WITH  PRELUDES  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

12mo.  $1.50. 

CONTENTS. 

LECTURES. 

I.  Intuition,  Instinct,  Experiment,  Syllogism,  as  Tests 
of  Truth. 

II.  Transcendentalism  in  New  England. 

III.  Theodore  Parker’s  Absolute  Religion. 

IV.  Caricatured  Definitions  in  Religious  Science. 

V.  Theodore  Pariser  on  the  Guilt  of  Sin. 


4 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


VI.  Final  Permanence  of  Moral,  Character. 

VII.  Can  a  Perfect  Being  permit  Evil? 

VIII.  The  Religion  required  by  the  Nature  of  Things. 

IX.  Theodore  Parker  on  Communion  with  God  as  Personal. 

X.  The  Trinity  and  Tritheism. 

XI.  Fragmentariness  of  Outlook  upon  the  Divine  Nature. 

PRELUDES. 

I.  The  Children  of  the  Perishing  Poor. 

II.  The  F  ailure  of  Strauss’s  Mythical  Theory. 

III.  Chalmers’s  Remedy  for  the  Evils  of  Cities. 

IV.  Mexicanized  Politics. 

V.  Yale,  Harvard,  and  Boston. 

VI.  The  Right  Direction  of  the  Religiously  Irresolute. 

VII.  Religious  Conversation. 

VIII.  George  Whitefield  in  Boston. 

IX.  Circe’s  Cup  in  Cities. 

X.  Civil-Service  Reform. 

XI.  Plymouth  Rock  as  the  Corner-Stone  of  a  Factory. 


CRITICAL  ESTIMATES  {AMERICAN). 


Rev.  Prof.  A.  P.  Peabody  of  Harvard  University ,  in  The  Independent. 

Joseph  Cook  is  a  phenomenon  to  he  accounted  for.  No  other 
American  orator  has  done  what  he  has  done,  or  any  thing  like  it, 
and,  prior  tg  the  experiment,  no  voice  would  have  been  bold  enough 
to  predict  its  success. 

We  reviewed  Mr.  Cook’s  “  Lectures  on  Biology  ”  with  unqualified 
praise.  In  the  present  volume  we  find  tokens  of  the  same  genius, 
the  same  intensity  of  feeling,  the  same  lightning  flashes  of  impas¬ 
sioned  eloquence,  the  same  viselike  hold  on  the  rapt  attention  and 
absorbing  interest  of  his  hearers  and  readers.  We  are  sure  that  we 
are  unbiassed  by  the  change  of  subject;  for,  though  we  dissent  from 
some  of  the  dogmas  which  the  author  recognizes  in  passing,  there 
is  hardly  one  of  his  consecutive  trains  of  thought  in  which  we  are 
not  in  harmony  with  him,  or  one  of  his  skirmishes  in  which  our 
sympathies  are  not  wholly  on  his  side. 

Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Hill ,  Ex-President  of  Harvard  University ,  in  the  Christian 

Register. 

The  attempt  of  sundry  critics  to  depreciate  Mr.  Cook’s  science, 
because  he  is  a  minister,  is  very  ill  judged.  These  Lectures  are 
crowded  so  full  of  knowledge,  of  thought,  of  argument,  illumined 
with  such  passages  of  eloquence  and  power,  spiced  so  frequently 
with  deep-cutting  though  good-natured  irony,  that  I  could  make  no 
abstract  from  them,  without  utterly  mutilating  them. 

The  Princeton  Review. 

Mr.  Cook  has  already  become  famous;  and  these  Lectures  are 
amomj  the  chief  works  that  have,  and  we  may  say  justly,  made  him 
»o.  Their  celebrity  is  due  partly  to  the  place  and  circumstances  oi 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


5 


their  delivery,  but  still  more  to  tlieir  inherent  power,  without  which 
no  adventitious  aids  could  have  lifted  them  into  the  deserved  promi¬ 
nence  they  have  attained.  .  .  .  Mr.  Cook  is  a  great  master  of  analy¬ 
sis.  .  .  .  The  Lecture  on  the  Atonement  is  generally  just,  able,  and 
unanswerable.  ...  We  think,  on  the  whole,  that  Mr.  Cook  shows 
singular  justness  of  view  in  his  manner  of  treating  the  most  difficult 
and  perplexing  themes,  for  example,  God  in  Natural  Law,  and  the 
Trinity. 

Springfield  Republican. 

This  now  preacher  of  modern  Orthodoxy  delivered  his  Fifty-first 
Monday  Lecture  under  the  caption  “  Life  or  Mechanism  —  Which  ?  ” 
this  week  in  the  Boston  Park-street  Church,  which  was  crowded  — 
even  to  the  galleries,  aisles,  and  pulpit-stairs  —  with  an  audience 
mostly  composed  of  men,  and  representing,  to  a  large  degree,  the 
culture  and  intellect  of  Boston  and  vicinity.  This  Monday  Lecture¬ 
ship  is  now  an  established  institution,  and  in  its  growing  popularity 
will  tax  pretty  severely  the  quality  of  Mr.  Cook.  He  has  so  far, 
however,  met  the  issue  squarely,  and  shows  no  signs  pf  emptiness  or 
flagging.  .  .  .  Mr.  Cook  has  in  liis  favor  a  happy  combination  of  per¬ 
sonal  advantages,  —  a  good  presence,  mental  grasp  considerable  per¬ 
sonal  magnetism,  logical  alertness  and  acuteness;  a  habit  of  minute 
and  precise  analysis,  with  sufficient  repetition  of  important  details; 
a  poetic  and  dramatic  gift,  lighting  up  what  might  else  be  dry  and 
heavy  with  frequent  flashes  of  wit  and  fancy,  and  literary  and  his¬ 
torical  illustration;  a  restless  fervor,  the  outcome  of  an  excess  of 
physical  nervousness,  which,  however,  is  never  disconcerted;  and 
withal,  a  fine  mastery  of  good,  copious  Saxon  English. 

Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 

At  high  noon  on  Monday,  Tremont  Temple  was  packed  to  suffo¬ 
cation  and  overflowing,  although  five  thousand  people  were  in  the 
Tabernacle  at  the  same  hour.  The  Temple  audience  consisted 
chiefly  of  men,  and  was  of  distinguished  quality,  containing  hun¬ 
dreds  of  persons  well  known  in  the  learned  professions.  Wendell 
Phillips,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  Bronson  Alcott,  and  many  other 
citizens  of  eminence,  sat  on  the  platform.  No  better  proof  than  the 
character  of  the  audience  could  have  been  desired  to  show  that  Mr. 
Cook’s  popularity  as  a  lecturer  is  not  confined  to  the  evangelical 
denominations.  (Feb.  7.) 

It  is  not  often  that  Boston  people  honor  a  public  lecturer  so  much 
as  to  crowd  to  hear  him  at  the  noontide  of  a  week-day;  and  when  it 
does  this  month  after  month,  the  fact  is  proof  positive  that  his  sub¬ 
ject  is  one  of  engrossing  interest.  Mr.  Cook,  perhaps  more  than  any 
gentleman  in  the  lecture-field  the  past  few  years,  has  been  so 
honored.  (Feb.  14.) 

The  Independent. 

We  know  of  no  man  that  is  doing  more  to-day  to  show  the  rea¬ 
sonableness  of  Christianity,  and  the  unreasonableness  of  unbelief; 
nor  do  we  know  of  any  one  who  is  doing  it  with  such  admirable 
tolerance,  yet  dramatic  intensity. 

George  M.  Beard ,  M.D.>  in  the  New-  York  Graphic. 

It  is  said  that  Mr.  Cook  misrepresents  modern  science.  This  criti¬ 
cism  is  made  mostly  by  those  who  do  not  read  all  his  books;  or  judge 
by  the  original  reports  at  the  beginning  of  the  series,  or  by  floating 


6 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


fragments  in  the  papers,  or  by  general  hearsay;  or  very  likely  by 
those  who  themselves  know  little  of  science,  or  at  least  who  are  not 
versed  on  all  sides  of  his  subjects.  His  work,  as  it  now  stands,  aftel 
many  and  careful  revisions,  represents  fairly  the  present  state  of 
science  on  the  subject  of  which  he  treats, — of  the  very  latest  and 
best  researches.  Indeed  inquirers  who  will  read  all  of  his  work,  and 
not  part  of  it,  and  who  are  sufficiently  endowed  with  the  scientific 
sense  to  separate  the  philosophical  reasonings  from  the  facts  on 
which  the  reasonings  are  based,  will  find  therein  the  clearest  and 
most  compact  statements  of  the  theories  and  difficulties  of  evolution, 
of  the  movements  of  bioplasm,  and  of  physiological  experimenls  on 
decapitated  animals  and  on  the  electrical  irritation  of  the  brain,  that 
ax>pear  in  x>opular  literature. 

Professor  John  McCrady,  in  The  Literary  World. 

Mr.  Cook’s  Lectures  upon  Biology  have  done  good  service  in 
making  known  to  a  Boston  audience  the  researches  of  such  men  as 
Lionel  Beale  in  England,  and  the  thoughts  of  such  men  as  Hermann 
Lotze  in  Germany,  besides  the  admissions  and  inconsistencies  of  the 
practical  materialists,  and  a  valuable  review  of  the  whole  state  of 
the  battle  by  an  able  and  fearless  theological  observer  like  himself. 
The  publication  of  these  Lectures  cannot  fail  to  be  of  service  to  the 
extra-scientific  world  in  general.  The  book  well  x>resents  to  out¬ 
siders  a  certain  little-known  stage  of  conservative  scientific  thought, 
which  they  cannot  reach  anywhere  else  in  so  accessible  and  compact 
a  form.  Its  extremely  pox>ular  form,  though  quite  disturbing  to  the 
nervous  equilibrium  of  a  confirmed  man  of  science,  is,  nevertheless, 
well  fitted  for  those  it  aims  to  inform,  —  the  great  free,  intelligent, 
and  religious-minded  public,  who  have  not  had  their  heads  squeezed 
by  specialistic  boards  and  bandages  into  strange  and  fantastic 
models  of  approved  scientific  monstrosity;  the  peojde,  in  short,  who 
have  not  made  philosophical  Flatheads  of  themselves  for  the  sake 
of  some  narrow  mole’s  track  of  scientific  investigation  known  as  a 
“  specialty.” 

This  specialism,  indeed,  is  aiming  to  destroy  all  freedom  of  thought 
and  speech,  and,  by  consequence,  all  philosophic  thought  whatsoever, 
by  forbidding  every  man  to  exx>ress  an  opinion  on  any  subject  save 
his  own  sx>ecialty.  It  has  all  the  narrow  intolerance  of  Comte’s 
Positivism;  and  I,  for  one,  honor  Mr.  Cook  for  his  courage  in  taking 
it  by  the  beard,  and  defying  it.  I  heartily  recommend  his  book  to 
the  careful  reading  of  eA'erybody  who  lias  the  interest  of  scientific 
conservative  thought  at  heart.  Such  an  one  will,  at  the  least,  rise 
from  its  perusal  with  a  conception  of  the  existing  state  of  the  great 
battle  between  spirit  and  matter,  very  different  from  that  which  Mr. 
Huxley,  with  the  voice  of  a  dragon,  lays  down  in  his  “  Physical  Basis 
of  Life;”  and,  instead  of  “matter  and  law  devouring  spirit  and 
spontaneity,”  he  will  see  how  great  cause  there  is  for  anticipating 
the  ox>posite  result. 

Indeed,  the  progress  of  science  means,  to  my  apprehension,  the 
very  oiqiosite  of  all  that  Mr.  Huxley  contends  for  in  that  essay. 
Sx>irit  and  spontaneity  are  slowly  indeed,  but  surely,  advancing 
along  a  path  which  will  end  in  their  completely  devouring  matte'" 
and  law.  The  reality  of  the  universe  will  iwoveto  be  the  sx>irit : 
the  illusion  of  it,  the  matter  ;  while  natural  law  will  declare  itself 
nothing  more  than  the  self-consistency  of  untrammelled  spontaneity. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


7 


Professor  Borden  P.  Bowne  of  Boston  University ,  in  the  Sunday  Afternoon. 

In  the  chapters  on  the  Theories  of  Life,  these  discussions  are,  in 
many  respects,  models  of  argument;  and  the  descriptions  of  the 
facts  under  discussion  are  often  unrivalled  for  both  scientific  exact¬ 
ness,  and  rhetorical  adequacy  of  language.  In  the  present  state  of 
the  debate  there  is  no  better  manual  of  the  argument  than  the 
work  in  hand.  The  emptiness  of  the  mechanical  explanation  of 
Life  was  never  more  clearly  shown. 

Appletons'  Journal. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  distinguishing  and  striking  characteristic 
of  Mr.  Cook’s  work  is,  that  he  pours  out  the  treasures  of  the  latest 
German  thought  before  audiences  and  readers  whose  ideas  of  sci¬ 
ence  and  philosophy  have  been  moulded  almost  exclusively  by  that 
English  school,  which,  as  Taine  says,  tends  naturally  (by  racial  in¬ 
heritance)  to  materialistic  viewrs  of  life.  Our  knowledge  of  the  author 
is  confined  to  what  we  can  obtain  from  his  book ;  but  this  is  amply 
sufficient  to  show  that  his  intellectual  equipment  has  been  obtained 
in  Germany,  and  is  truly  German  in  its  comprehensiveness  and  pre¬ 
cision.  .  .  .  Aside  from  the  rhetorical  brilliancy  of  his  style,  and  the 
aptness  and  fertility  of  his  illustrations,  Mr.  Cook’s  method  of  ex¬ 
position  is  remarkably  effective.  By  numbering  his  propositions, 
and  stating  them  in  the  concisest  possible  phrase,  he  secures  a  clear¬ 
ness  and  intelligibility  that  are  seldom  so  well  maintained  in  a  long 
and  complicated  argument;  and  the  epigrammatic  guise  in  which 
most  of  his  principles  and  conclusions  are  presented  impresses  them 
with  peculiar  vividness  upon  the  mind  of  the  reader  or  hearer. 

The  Eclectic  Magazine. 

Mr.  Cook’s  rhetorical  and  literary  skill  would  obtain  him  a  hear¬ 
ing  on  any  subject  he  chose  to  discuss;  but  it  is  very  soon  seen,  that, 
beneath  the  glowing  and  almost  too  fervidly  eloquent  language,  there 
is  a  force  of  logic,  a  breadth  of  intellectual  culture,  and  a  mastery 
of  all  the  issues  involved,  such  as  are  seldom  exhibited  by  partici¬ 
pants  on  either  side  in  the  great  controversy  between  religion  and 
science.  It  may  be  said  unqualifiedly  that  the  pulpit  lias  never 
brought  such  comprehensiveness  and  precision  of  knowledge,  cqm- 
bined  with  such  logical  and  literary  skill,  to  the  discussion  of  the 
questions  raised  by  the  supposed  tendency  of  biological  discovery. 

International  Review. 

The  lecture-form  is  retained,  and  the  implied  comments  of  the 
audience,  as  given  by  the  reporters,  are  furnished  us,  —  a  feature 
which  will  strike  readers  favorably  or  otherwise,  as  their  ideas  are 
more  or  less  severe  on  the  composition  and  make-up  of  a  book.  For 
our  part,  we  like  this  feature. 

The  Advance  {Chicago). 

The  reasons  given  for  retaining  the  responses  of  the  audience, 
applause,  &c.,  seem  to  us  in  this  case  satisfactory.  It  is  frequently 
as  much  a  matter  of  significant  interest  to  know  how  statements 
were  received  by  such  an  audience  as  to  know  what  the  one  indi¬ 
vidual  said.  This  Boston  Lectureship  is  altogether  unique  in 


8 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


the  recent  history  of  popular  exposition  of  abstruse  themes.  C  ue 
has  to  go  back  to  the  time  of  Peter  Abelard  of  the  University  of 
Paris  for  a  parallel  to  it. 

The  Interior  (  Chicago ). 

These  Lectures  are  full  of  hard  thought  and  eloquent  exj  ses¬ 
sion.  They  dwell  on  the  profoundest  religious  themes,  and  in  the 
most  incisive  way.  The  same  power  of  analysis,  sharpness  and 
precision  of  statement,  and  gorgeous  rhetoric,  which  characte?  izi  d 
the  volume  on  “  Biology,”  are  conspicuous  here.  In  these  two  vol¬ 
umes  Mr.  Cook  has  given  us  the  most  forcible  and  readable  of  all 
modern  defences  of  essential  Christian  truth  against  the  scientific 
and  philosophic  heresies  of  the  day. 

The  Standard  ( Chicago). 

The  incisive,  trenchant  style  of  Mr.  Cook  has,  perhaps,  no*  more 
admirable  adaptation  and  application  than  to  the  demolition  of  the 
glittering  but  specious  logic  of  materialistic  philosophy.  It  i3  a 
pleasure  to  the  intellect,  as  well  as  to  the  conscience,  to  follow 
M^.  Cook  in  his  irresistible  iconoclasm  among  the  images  of  the  theo¬ 
rists  who  substitute  evolution  for  God  in  the  grand  pi  ocess  of 
cosmogony. 

Cincinnati  Gazette. 

It  must  be  admitted  by  the  most  captious  critic,  that  Mr.  Cook 
states  his  positions  with  wonderful  grace  and  clearness,  fr&d  that  he 
fortifies  what  may  appear  most  paradoxical  by  a  remarkable  array 
of  illustration  and  argument. 

Boston  Traveller. 

There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  Mr.  Cook  is  a  born  orator.  As  a 
popular  platform  speaker,  he  has  few  rivals,  and,  broadly  speaking, 
we  might  say  no  superiors. 

Boston  Journal. 

These  Discourses  relate  to  the  great  problems  of  life  most  at  issue 
between  science  and  religion.  They  were  received  witn  eager  inter¬ 
est  when  delivered;  and,  being  republished  in  whole  or  in  part  by 
the  American  and  English  papers,  they  were,  in  effect,  spoken  to  an 
audience  on  both  sides  of  the  sea.  Mr.  Cook’s  eloquent  and  pic¬ 
turesque  style  — which  has  in  it  a  touch  of  Emerson  and  a  touch  of 
Carlyle,  as  well  as  qualities  peculiarly  its  own  —  loses  little  by  trans¬ 
ference  from  the  platform  to  the  printed  page;  and,  indeed,  the  lat¬ 
ter  form  of  joresentation  has  its  advantages,  as  being  more  conducive 
to  the  calm  and  leisure  which  subjects  of  so  much  importance 
require  for  their  adequate  consideration. 

New-  York  Christihn  Intelligencer. 

"We  believe  this  book  ought  to  stand  and  will  stand  among  the 
very  first  of  the  Apologies  of  the  last  quarter  of  this  century. 

.  The  Christian  Union. 

Mr.  Cook  is  profoundly  interested  in  his  themes.  Indeed,  he 
never  fails  to  be  kindled  into  enthusiasm  by  tlie.r  transcendent 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


9 


Importance.  He  understands  the  reach  of  the  physiological  ques¬ 
tions  which  he  discusses,  and  the  philosophical  problems  which  he 
essays  to  solve.  His  mind  is  penetrating  and  subtle.  He  delights  in 
an  argument,  and  is  the  last  man  to  fear  an  antagonist.  It  would 
not  be  easy  to  decide  whether  he  possesses  the  logical  or  the  imagina¬ 
tive  powers  in  excess. 

Illustrated  Christian  Weekly. 

"We  enjoy  the  splendor  of  Mr.  Cook’s  rhetoric  and  the  brilliancy 
of  his  imagination,  as  in  reading  a  poem. 

Church  Journal  (New  York). 

His  style  is  peculiar.  It  is  clear,  abounding  in  most  expressive 
figure..  with  perhaps  a  slight  shading  of  Carlyleism.  But  we  do  not 
now  recall  a  more  forcible  writer  of  "the  day.  His  blows  at  Parker- 
ism,  Huxleyism,  and  Darwinism,  come  down  with  sledge-hammer 
force.  He  is  no  mere  declaimer.  He  speaks  with  the  authority  of 
a  man  who  has  studied  and  mastered  his  subject,  and  who  has  fairly 
dissected  the  fallacies  which  he  so  ably  exposes. 

The  Christian  at  Work. 

Mr.  Cook  has  taken  his  place  as  one  of  the  ablest  controversial¬ 
ists  of  the  day.  His  logic  is  remorseless.  He  lays  every  thing  under 
tribute,  and  drives  every  nail  home. 

Worcester  Spy. 

As  a  thinker  he  has  notable  clearness  and  strength.  His  style 
is  full  of  life  and  vigor;  and  he  has  an  admirable  mastery  of  the 
power  of  expression;  but  these  alone  would  not  sufficiently  ex¬ 
plain  the  great  success  of  his  Monday  Lectures.  The  true  explana¬ 
tion  is,  that  he  selected,  live  questions  for  discussion,  after  having 
studied  them,  and  taken  pains  to  understand  them  thoroughly.  He 
can  meet  the  most  perfectly  furnished  materialistic  speculators  on 
their  own  ground;  is  familiar  with  all  the  outs  and  ins  of  their 
methods  of  reasoning;  and  is  able  to  match  their  knowledge  of  the 
studies  and  discoveries  in  physical  science,  which  they  use  in  support 
oi  the  positions  they  endeavor  to  maintain. 

Hartford  Courant. 

The  volumes  containing  his  metaphysical  speculations  and  scien¬ 
tific  treatment  of  the  problem  of  religion  sell  like  novels.  Mr.  Cook 
is  not  only  a  master  of  the  art  of  putting  things,  but  he  is  a  wit.  It 
is  wit  none  the  less  because  it  is  used  for  a  serious  purpose. 

Presbyterian  Banner. 

The  folly  of  materialistic  philosophers  has  only  been  exceeded 
by  their  arrogance  ;  and  it  is  truly  refreshing  to  find  their  inflated 
bubbles  so  completely  punctured  and  dissipated  by  the  keen  thrusts 
of  Mr.  Cook’s  unanswerable  logic. 

The  Penn.  Monthly  (Philadelphia). 

His  addresses  have  been  well  called  prose  poems.  Nothing  could 

•eem  less  poetical  to  the  eye  than  his  numbered  paragraphs.  They 

« 


10 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


look  like  a  series  of  theses  set  up  for  the  defiance  of  all  comers. 
But  ear  and  sense  alike  are  captivated  as  we  read,  and  we  are  forced, 
to  recognize  a  master  of  English  prose. 

Religious  Herald  ( Richmond ,  Va.). 

No  man  in  America  is  just  now  attracting  more  attention  than 
Joseph  Cook,  and  his  Titanic  blows  are  telling  on  the  materialistic 
scepticism  of  the  day.  .  .  .  He  is  clear,  axiomatic,  and  irresistible 
through  all  his  arguments,  and,  while  always  courteous  to  opponents, 
is  often  keenly  satirical. 

The  Theological  Medium ,  Nashville ,  Tenn. 

His  learning  is  immense,  his  faculty  of  order  eminent,  his  imagi¬ 
nation  very  brilliant,  and  his  logic  strong  and  close. 

New  Orleans  Times. 

The  Lectures  are  crowded  with  eloquent  passages,  telling  satire, 
and  keen,  critical,  and  precise  reasoning. 

San  Francisco  Evening  Bulletin. 

The  style  is  peculiarly  vivid,  presenting  occasionally  some  of  the 
characteristics  of  Carlyle.  The  book,  in  consequence  of  its  scope 
and  general  attractiveness,  is  destined  to  become  very  popular. 

San  Frmncisco  Bancroft's  Messenger. 

Possessed  of  a  calm,  critical,  and  methodical  mind,  Mr.  Cook  has 
constructed,  from  the  material  at  his  disposal,  about  a  dozen  of  the 
most  interesting  essays  that  have  yet  appeared  on  the  relation  of 
religion  and  science.  On  almost  every  page  of  the  volume,  elo¬ 
quence  leaves  its  mark.  , 

San  Francisco  Evening  Post. 

Emotion,  clearness,  and  sound  sense  are  the  weapons  with  which 
he  produces  conviction. 

The  Congregational  Quarterly. 

» 

"We  can  most  heartily  commend  fhe  work  on  Orthodoxy  for  its 
graphic  power,  for  its  bold  and  manly  exhibitions  of  truth,  for  the 
carefulness  in  general  of  its  distinctions,  for  the  magnetic  quality  of 
its  style,  for  its  clear  aim  and  direction;  in  short,  for  a  portrayal  of 
orthodoxy  such  as  is  reasonable  and  defensible. 

The  Bibliotheca  Sacra. 

There  is  no  other  work  on  biology,  there  is  no  other  work  on  the¬ 
ology,  with  which  this  volume  of  lectures  can  well  be  compared.  It 
is  a  book  that  no  biologist,  whether  an  originator  or  a  mere  middle¬ 
man  in  science,  would  ever  have  written.  Traversing  a  very  wide 
field,  cutting  right  across  the  territories  of  rival  specialists,  it  con¬ 
tains  not  one  important  scientific  misstatement,  either  of  fact  or 
theory.  Not  only  the  propositions,  but  the  dates,  the  references,  the 
names,  and  the  histories  of  scientific  discoveries  and  speculations, 
aro  presented  as  they  are  found  in  the  sources  whence  they  are 
taken,  02  at  least  with  only  verbal  and  minor  changes. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


11 


CRITICAL  ESTIMATES  (FOREIGN). 


Rev.  R.  Payne  Smith ,  Dean  of  Canterbury. 

The  lectures  are  remarkably  eloquent,  vigorous,  and  powerful,  and 
no  one  could  read  them  without  great  benefit.  They  deal  with  very 
important  questions,  and  are  a  valuable  contribution  towards  solv* 
ing  many  of  the  difficulties  which  at  this  time  trouble  many  minds. 

Rev .  Dr.  Angus ,  the  College ,  Regent's  Park. 

These  Lectures  discuss  some  of  the  most  vital  questions  of  theol¬ 
ogy,  and  examine  the  views  or  writings  of  Emerson,  Theodore 
Parker,  and  others.  They  are  creating  a  great  sensation  in  Boston, 
where  they  have  been  delivered,  and  are  wonderful  specimens  of 
shrewd,  clear,  and  vigorous  thinking.  They  are,  moreover,  largely 
illustrative,  and  have  a  fine  vein  of  poetry  running  through  them. 
The  Lectures  on  the  Trinity  are  capitally  written;  and,  though  we 
are  not  prepared  to  accept  all  Mr.  Cook’s  statements,  the  Lectures, 
as  a  whole,  are  admirable.  A  dozen  such  lectures  have  ,  not  been 
Dublished  for  many  a  day. 

Rev.  Alexander  Raleigh ,  D.D.,  of  London. 

The  Lectures  are  in  every  way  of  a  high  order.  They  are  profound 
and  yet  clear,  extremely  forcible  in  some  of  their  parts,  yet,  I  think, 
always  fair,  and  as  full  of  sympathy  with  what  is  properly  and 
purely  human  as  of  reverence  for  what  is  undoubtedly  divine. 

Rev.  John  Ker ,  D.D.,  of  Glasgow. 

My  conviction  is,  that  they  are  specially  fitted  for  the  time,  and 
likely  above  all  to  be  useful  to  thoughtful  minds  engaged  in  seek¬ 
ing  a  footing  amid  the  quicksands  of  doubt.  There  is  a  freshness, 
a  power,  and  a  felt  sincerity,  in  the  way  in  which  they  deal  with 
the  engrossing  questions  of  our  time,  and,  indeed,  of  all  time,  which 
should  commend  them  to  earnest  spirits  which  feel  that  there  must 
be  a  God  and  a  soul,  and  some  way  of  bringing  them  together,  and 
which  yet  have  got  confused  amid  the  negations  of  the  dogmatic 
scepticism  of  our  day.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Mr.  Cook  four 
years  ago,  when  he  was  visiting  Europe  to  make  himself  acquainted 
with  different  forms  of  thought,  and  I  could  see  in  him  a  power  and 
resolution  which  foretold  the  mark  he  is  now  making  on  public 
opinion. 

Rev.  C.  IT.  Spurgeon. 

These  are  very  wonderful  Lectures.  We  bless  God  for  raising  up 
such  a  champion  for  his  truth  as  J oseph  Cook.  Few  could  hunt 
down  Theodore  Parker,  and  all  that  race  of  misbelievers,  as  Mr. 
Cook  has  done.  He  has  strong  convictions,  the  courage  of  his  con¬ 
victions,  and  force  to  support  his  courage.  In  reasoning,  the  infidel 

Earty  have  here  met  their  match.  We  know  of  no  other  man  one- 
alf  so  well  qualified  for  the  peculiar  sendee  of  exploding  the  pro- 


12 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


tensions  of  modern  science  as  this  great  preacher  in  whom  Boston  is 
rejoicing.  Some  men  shrink  from  this  spiritual  wild-boar  hunting, 
biit  Mr.  Cook  is  as  happy  in  it  as  he  is  expert.  May  his  arm  he 
strengthened  by  the  Lord  of  hosts! 

London  Quarterly  Review. 

For  searching  philosophical  analysis,  for  keen  and  merciless  logic, 
for  dogmatic  assertion  of  eternal  truth  in  the  august  name  of  science 
mch  as  thrills  the  soul  to  its  foundations,  for  widely  diversified  and 
most  apt  illustrations  drawn  from  a  wide  field  of  reading  and  obser¬ 
vation,  for  true  poetic  feeling,  for  a  pathos  without  any  mixture  of 
sentimentality,  for  candor,  for  moral  elevation,  and  for  noble  loyalty 
to  those  great  Christian  verities  which  the  author  affirms  and  vindi¬ 
cates,  these  wonderful  Lectures  stand  forth  alone  amidst  the  contem¬ 
porary  literature  of  the  class  to  which  they  belong. 

London  Baptist  Magazine. 

Mr.  Cook’s  “Monday  Lectures  ”  have  already  become  one  of  the 
most  popular  and  useful  institutions  of  America;  and  on  this  side 
the  Atlantic  we  know  of  no  author,  either  British  or  American,  who 
is  just  now  so  widely  read. 

Rev.  A.  Melville ,  Glasgow. 

It  is  because  Mr.  Cook  refuses  no  real  help  that  offers  itself  to 
him  from  any  quarter,  that  he  finds  firm  footing  on  the  heights  to 
which  he  climbs.  His  lectures  present  most  valuable  training  for 
dealing  with  all  such  questions,  from  the  fact  that  they  take  so  wide 
a  range,  and  combine  so  skilfully  all  departments  of  truth.  — Intro¬ 
duction  to  Glasgow  edition  of  Boston  Monday  Lectures. 

The  British  Quarterly  Review. 

Mr.  Cook  is  a  man  of  wide  reading,  tenacious  memory,  acute 
discrimination,  and  great  power  of  popular  exposition.  Nothing 
deters  him.  He  plunges  in  medias  res,  however  abstruse  the  specu¬ 
lation,  and  his  vigor  and  fire  carry  all  before  them.  He  has  intui¬ 
tive  genius  for  pricking  wind-bags,  and  for  reducing  over-sanguine 
and  exaggerated  hypotheses  to  their  exact  value.  He  has  called  a 
halt  in  many  an  impetuous  march  of  science,  and  exposed  a  funda¬ 
mental  fallacy  in  many  a  triumphant  argument. 

The  London  Spectator. 

The  incisiveness  and  raciness  of  their  style  make  the  lectures 
decidedly  worthy  of  attention.  The  discussions  of  the  permanence 
of  moral  character  and  the  self-propagating  power  of  sin  are  striking 
and  forcible  in  no  small  degree.  The  lectures  on  the  barrenness  of 
ethics  without  a  personal  God,  and  on  “  Trinity  and  Tritheism,’’  are 
full  of  true  and  elevating  thoughts,  and  genuine  and  wholesome 
sentiment. 


***  For  sale  by  all  booksellers.  Sent,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  the  price , 
by  the  Publishers, 

HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD  &  CO.,  Boston. 


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DATE  DUE 


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PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 

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